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Learning Opportunities

Build the knowledge and skills of your in-house talent by partnering with our faculty, thought leaders in both academic and industry spaces. Our faculty can customize continuing education seminars for your organization’s specific needs. We also facilitate conferences that benefit your organization specifically and the industry generally. Among our areas of expertise are:

The actuarial science, risk management, and insurance professions require continuous life-long learning. The Wisconsin School of Business Center for Professional and Executive Development (CPED) understands this and offers both open-enrollment programs for all professionals and custom designed programs for particular organizations in these spaces.

Please email the chair of Risk and Insurance, Joan Schmit, to learn more.

Insurance Management Education

In collaboration with The Institutes, we offer an “Insurance Management Education” program for professionals. This three-day interactive program focuses on the combined aspects of insurance acumen and personal leadership development. Participants who have completed the program have expressed positive reactions and shared that they have experienced significant personal growth.

Learn more

Applied Learning

Knowing that we often learn best by doing, our department has partnered with industry over many years to conduct applied learning projects. These projects generate from a need within the partner organization, who offers time and support as students analyze the problem, develop recommendations, and present these recommendations to top leaders within the organizations. During this process, students develop stronger appreciation for organizational structure and activities, project management, teamwork, and specific content acumen.

Consider participating in an applied learning project and experience the excitement and gratitude of our students. Recent semester-long projects have been completed in coordination with a variety of organizations, including:

  • Abbott Labs
  • American Family Insurance Company
  • CUNA Mutual Group
  • East Madison Community Center
  • Lands’ End
  • Willis Towers Watson (formerly Towers Watson)
  • United Airlines
  • Validus
  • Meemic Insurance
  • Wartburg College

TomoTherapy Enterprise Risk Management Audit

Shortly after TomoTherapy, a Madison-based biotech firm, became a public entity, a group of MBA students led by alumna Christy Kaufman conducted an ERM audit of the organization. Reporting to the firm’s C-Suite, the MBA team offered a series of recommendations to manage TomoTherapy’s risks in a holistic fashion. Several ultimately were implemented by management.

United Airlines Risk Management Dashboard

A team of eight MBA students and five BBA students analyzed United airline’s claims history and identified relevant relationships within the data. The team then recommended a better way to represent these relationships using United’s new data management tool. The resulting dashboards and recommendations were presented to United’s leadership team with the intent of enhancing risk management decisions.

"Collaborating with the Risk Management and Insurance program at the Wisconsin School of Business during Spring 2015 provided valuable insights into United’s attritional losses and risk profile. The students identified opportunities to more strategically collect data that we are implementing to improve risk awareness at United. Working with students who bring talent, enthusiasm and a fresh perspective is one of the benefits of developing strong partnerships with educational institutions."
Andy Nottestad
Managing Director- Risk and Management United Airlines, Inc.