It was not until his senior year at the University of Georgia's Terry School of Business that Andy Kuchar took his first risk management elective. His professor invited professionals from the business world to lecture on the different facets of the risk management industry, opening up an entirely new discipline to Kuchar. After graduation, he went to work as an auditor for KPMG, but soon decided that life as a corporate risk manager would be a better fit. So Kuchar returned to Terry to get a Ph.D. in risk management and along with his studies, began teaching younger students the same course that sparked his initial interest in risk management.

Now, as the senior director of risk management for Arby's Restaurant Group, which maintains 3,500 restaurants worldwide, Kuchar has seen first-hand the increasing importance of formal risk management education. "It seems like an evolution is taking place," he says. "Companies are discovering that they need risk managers-they can't just take someone from another department and put a risk manager hat on them. I notice more and more job postings reading 'risk management degree preferred.'"

When Kuchar received his Ph.D. in 1999, few schools embraced risk management education as something other than an elective within a larger business, finance or insurance program. Students can now receive everything from a bachelor's to Ph.D. degree in risk management and insurance. Popular executive education and master's programs for working professionals allow risk managers and insurance professionals a chance to make more money and improve their careers.

"When I was in school, insurance and risk management were either something you 'fell into' or you [learned because you] were going to take over your father's agency," says Karen Hunter, an underwriting specialist at State Farm and a board member of the Gamma Iota Sigma risk management and insurance fraternity [see page 26]. "Now a diverse group of students are choosing to work in risk management and insurance."

This changing educational landscape has ushered in a new appreciation of the speciality of risk management education from organizations in both the public and the private sectors. Rather than just choosing to relegate the role of risk manager to a well-informed financial analyst or operational expert, more and more organizations are realizing that they need trained specialists who can oversee a holistic approach. And with each passing year, events like Enron, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the subprime meltdown only elevate this necessity.

"Over the past five years, the world has seen many different disasters," says Erwann Michel-Kerjan, the managing director of Wharton's Risk Management and Decision Process Center. "The effects are now amplified because the growing interdependence between countries and companies. As a result, what is going on 5,000 miles away today will be on your desk tomorrow. Welcome to 'Risk Management 2.0.'" 

Despite the rise in risk management majors, the position of risk manager remains high-level within most companies and generally requires experience, pushing many graduates-at least initially-to work in the insurance sector. 

"Many undergraduate students want to be risk managers at the beginning, but it is challenging without the experience," says Joan Schmitt, the chair of the Actuarial Science, Risk Management and Insurance Department at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "So many of these students go into brokerage, underwriting or consulting... There tends to be a focus on insurance, but insurance is only one of many ways to handle risk."

Of course, risk management is really an evolution of the insurance industry, so this intermingling is to be expected-and mostly embraced.

"Risk management is an expanding field," says Schmitt. "The origins came from the insurance industry and as a result of its growth, education is responding." 

University-level courses in risk management study vary from traditional seminar courses and lecture-based classes that bring in working risk professionals to corporate risk assessments and classroom role-playing games. Across the board, schools also encourage students to engage in internships and gather as much professional experience as possible, an endeavor many of the larger business programs help students procure. 

In other ways, the students help themselves. Peter Pang, a senior and risk management major at St. John's University and the president of St. John's Gamma Iota Sigma chapter, schedules speaker sessions every month for risk management majors. Growing up in Queens, New York, Pang had a passion for casino risk management but after beginning his studies at St. John's  School of Risk Management, Insurance and Actuarial Science, he instead became enamored by the idea of enterprise risk management for the financial services industry. Thus far, Pang could not be happier with his decision.

"The risk management program is a smaller group than the business program, so it's a lot more fun," says Pang. "One of the most interesting classes that I have ever taken was on alternative risk transfer. It encompassed everything, including catastrophic risk for protecting a business or a country." 

Jamaal Sedayao, also a senior and risk management major at St. John's, discovered risk management in a different fashion. He began taking classes at the business school, intending to major in actuarial science (he had always been adept at math), but became more interested in the idea of being a broker or underwriter, which, at least initially, may be an easier route for him to break into the industry.

"Primarily, it is the insurance industry that hires our graduates," says Dr. R. B. Drennan, the chair of Temple University's Risk Management, Insurance and Healthcare Management program. "There are very few entry-level risk management jobs. But the insurance industry is looking around at themselves and seeing that they are aging. And they don't see where their next generation is coming from."

Sedayao, who hopes to continue on to his receive an MBA after finishing his current program, remains interested in all aspects of risk management, however, and has already taken many memorable courses. "In the introductory risk management class we had case studies of different companies," says Sedayao. "One class, called 'Corporate Risk Management,' did a case study of a large corporation in terms of the risks involved and, in a class called 'Risk Seminar,' we covered natural disasters."

All of the most successful risk management programs offer diverse courses, such as those at St. John's, and most include opportunities to examine real-world case studies. For many students, it is these courses that really help solidify the knowledge foundation for a career in risk management. 

Perhaps most importantly, the best programs also teach the one lesson that every experienced risk manager has learned even without a formal education: the career may not always be easy, but it will certainly never be boring. "I always tell my students that there is a really good career for you in risk management. I feel lucky to have been introduced to this field," says Kathleen McCullough, a professor at Florida State University. "It is so dynamic and we have to stay current. Luckily, risk management stays interesting."

Pearl Gabel is associate editor of Risk Management.