Spencer Announces 2022 General and Course Development Grant Recipients
November 4, 2021 - The Spencer Educational Foundation is proud to announce our 2022 General grant award recipients along with 2 new Course Development grant recipients. For the 2022 grant year cycle, Spencer awarded 12 General grants totaling $252,250 (including multi-year grants). Spencer’s 2022 General grant recipients include:
Spencer received a wide range of General grant proposals, and the Foundation is excited to see these efforts in action to help further broaden the talent pipeline. Many of the initiatives include specific, earmarked support for students of color and other traditionally underrepresented groups. Among the deserving recipients are an early career development symposium for Ph.D. students in risk and insurance; a Financial Services, Insurance and Risk Management (FIRM) Symposium for undergraduate students at an Historically Black College/University (HBCU); a Diversity & Leadership Conference Scholarship Program; a Risk Management and Insurance program at three new high schools, and more.
“The Spencer grants program provides educational and real-life experiences to students who are interested in pursuing careers in risk management and insurance. Thanks to the generous support of our donors, we’re able to reach thousands of students and expose them to the great opportunities that await them in the industry,” said Kristen Bessette, Spencer Grants Committee Chair and Chief Actuary at QBE North America. “Each year, we receive many excellent proposals, but our selected partners really stood out with the quality of their programs and their broad outreach. Congratulations to all the grant recipients!”
Through our Course Development funding, Spencer has been keenly focused on bringing new Risk Management and Insurance curricula to Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) to broaden the base of students who are exposed to the profession. The Foundation is proud to announce support for the following universities totaling $41,000, and has earmarked another $65,000 of funding for further course development at additional institutions:
Stony Brook University was awarded a grant in support of the College of Business’s efforts to launch a Specialization in Risk Management and Insurance, including the development of a new “Foundations of Property and Casualty Insurance” course.
University of North Texas, a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), was awarded a grant to support the incorporation of RMI Professional Designations into UNT’s undergraduate RMI curriculum.
“Congratulations to the universities who received a course development grant this year,” said Andrea Dudek, Spencer Course Development Grants Committee Chair and Managing Director of Global Risk Assessment & Financing at Accenture. “Funding RMI education and introducing students to new rewarding career paths in the industry is of utmost importance to us and we are proud to support such important initiatives.”
Spencer provides a myriad of grants aimed at developing and advancing our industry’s future leaders. Past grants include development of advanced courses in InsurTech, Enterprise Risk Management, Cyber Risk, and Data Analytics; student attendance at industry conferences and symposia; and a variety of other unique proposals. Spencer’s goal to help build a diverse, global talent pipeline of risk and insurance professionals is achieved in part by our collaboration with risk and insurance educators across the United States and Canada.
To read more about Spencer’s 2022 grant recipients, go to: www.spencered.org/grant-recipients.
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About the Spencer Educational Foundation
The Spencer Educational Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization funding the education of tomorrow’s risk management and insurance leaders through scholarships, grants, internship opportunities, on and off campus experiential learning, and support of risk management/insurance curricula. Since Spencer was founded in 1979, we have awarded over $8 million in scholarships and over $5 million in grants to universities and professional institutions impacting more than 60,000 students through our programs. For more information, please visit us at www.spencered.org.