Contact: Sammy McDavid
Officials in Mississippi State's College of Business and Industry are announcing the university's first Insurance Education Summer Institute, to be held on campus next year.
Organized by MSU's Peter K. Lutken Chair of Insurance, the July 18-23 program is designed especially for high school teachers, counselors and administrators, community college instructors and, university graduate students. The cost of tuition, room and board and educational material expenses will be covered by a grant from the sponsoring Insurance Education Foundation.
Based in Indianapolis, Ind., the IEF is a non-profit organization supported by contributions from the insurance industry that works to improve the public understanding of insurance and its role in society.
"The course is designed for educators who teach insurance either as a specific course or as part of another subject," said Edward H. Duett Jr. "The goal is to help them become more effective instructors by providing the tools needed for an understanding of all forms of insurance, particularly as it relates to high school students and their families."
Duett, a finance professor, holds the business college's Lutken Chair--or endowed professorship--a memorial to the Mississippi State alumnus who founded the formerly Jackson-based Lamar Life Insurance Co.
Tammi Riddle, who will serve as institute director, said the MSU training begins with a three-week period of online introductions to classroom topics in the campus sessions.
"The face-to-face classroom sessions will begin with a review and expansion of information provided to each person via computer," Riddle explained. "This will be followed by a series of guest speakers from the insurance industry and government agencies, as well as field trips and lesson-plan projects."
She said successful completion of the summer training will provide participants with three credit hours of graduate-level MSU coursework.
More information about the institute can be found at http://www.cbi.msstate.edu/. For answers to specific questions, contact Duett at eduett@cobilan.msstate.edu or Riddle at triddle@cobilan.msstate.edu. The telephone number for both is (662) 325-2341.
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Information on the IEF and its program may be obtained by contacting program coordinator Carol Silvey at csilvey@ief.org or 1-800-433-4811.