2022 CAS Elections

[tommie.frazier]

@David_Skurnick

MLK believed in a color-blind society

Disagree. he dreamt of a world that would get to that point but was, aside from the quotes many cling to, adamant that we were not yet there. His dream was aspirational, regardless of how many whites repeated the punchline

[my_alt]

@David_Skurnick

My extended family is multi-racial. The author Lizzy Skurnick identifies herself as black.

I don’t know how you’re related to her, or what you think this fact proves, but her name is spelled Lizzie, not Lizzy.

[act_123]

I have a general question, semi-related. What functions and leadership is the CEO of the CAS do and how does that differ from the President’s role?

[Ted_Hoffman]

@David_Skurnick

The CAS should make every effort to attract blacks into an actuarial career. One way would be to provide information to historically black colleges and universities and for CAS to members to make personal visits to these schools.

What else can be done to pursue diversity within the actuarial community, that does not exclusively focus on “blacks”? Because, in case you weren’t aware - I’m sure you are, I hope you are - increasing diversity is more than just adding more “blacks”.

@David_Skurnick

We can point out that although the US still suffers from some racism, the CAS exams are totally free of racism.

I’m sure this is extremely comforting to otherwise qualified people in various minority groups who still cannot get a toenail hold into entering our community for various reasons.

[Mountainhawk]

@David_Skurnick

We can point out that although the US still suffers from some racism, the CAS exams are totally free of racism.

Literally laughing out loud. “Some racism”. The US system is racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic to its core, including the CAS.

[tommie.frazier]

@tommie.frazier

the we love the cas folks have a survey out. i found it poorly worded or lacking in ability to clarify an answer. I am sure the responses (given the mailing list of folks who don’t auto delete their emails) will be overwhelmingly lined up with their baseline beliefs anyway.

based on the summary sent to me, i was shockingly prescient.

[lllj]

So, I’ve read the candidates’ biographies - Interesting group, vs. prior years’ candidates. I am assuming the WeLoveTheCAS folks put out a coordinated “political” effort to get certain people on the ballot, given there are multiple candidates expressing their concerns about the DEI strategy in their answers, which I haven’t seen in the past (or perhaps the email spam just got more people worked up about this topic generally, such that the people concerned about diversity initiatives decided to run). I have the same concerns about the attempt to rescind ratemaking principles and attempts to shift power from volunteers to staff as many people do, but the noise about the DEI policy just seems straight up political to me (Fox News type politics, not just actuarial politics). The language used is more professional now, but I have skepticism about anyone involved with the organization that got its start from sending angry “the radical woke communist left is taking over the CAS” emails to the entire actuarial directory.

[Lucy]

@David_Skurnick

The CAS should make every effort to attract blacks into an actuarial career. One way would be to provide information to historically black colleges and universities and for CAS to members to make personal visits to these schools.

Isn’t that (plus outreach to some other underrepresented groups) pretty much the core of the CAS’s DEI policy? To work harder to let high school and college kids know about the opportunities?

I guess they also want to mentor and support people in minority groups who are working their way into the field.

[Lucy]

@tommie.frazier

@tommie.frazier

the we love the cas folks have a survey out. i found it poorly worded or lacking in ability to clarify an answer. I am sure the responses (given the mailing list of folks who don’t auto delete their emails) will be overwhelmingly lined up with their baseline beliefs anyway.

based on the summary sent to me, i was shockingly prescient.

I found their summary incredible annoying. “Join our organization if you want to see the actual results”, with teasers about what the results aren’t.

That’s not the actions of a transparent and honest group.

[jooni]

New FCAS here, so it will be my first opportunity to participate. Your comments led me to read the biographies of the candidates, so thank you for that. Definitely looking forward to doing my part now.

[sylvos]

After seeing the “We Love the Cas” endorsements, I read through the answers to questions and will be revising my ballot imo

[Ted_Hoffman]

I still :ctm: that the website proudly advertises

This website was created to open a dialogue among CAS Members regarding recent CAS Leadership decisions that often exclude the CAS Membership and may violate our CAS Constitution

And yet,

This webpage is here for people who are not WLTC / CAS members. If you don’t become a member here, you will not be able to view or comment on posts.

…

If you log in, your comments will only be seen by other CAS members. You can make your comments anonymous by entering your first and last name as anything that does not reveal your name. If you are not sure, write to us at [e-mail address] and tell us what you’d like to do.

I get the same vibe from CAS surveys that ask questions that will surely invite criticism, then close with something like “would you like to provide your name and e-mail address in case we have questions?”

[jooni]

I’d like to see who they endorsed too

[Ted_Hoffman]

Probably people who will attest the exams are 100% free of racism, but willing to give a little help to “blacks” or something.

[Mountainhawk]

The WLTC “endorsed” Bergh, Hines, Gleba, and Skurnick. Gleba has reached out to me on LI and said he wasn’t aware he was being endorsed. Not sure of the other three, but Skurnick in particular has had some particularly vile things to say.

[jooni]

Good to know, thank you

[Lucy]

If they want me to believe their claims about what their survey found, for instance, they should publish it in a way that’s transparent.

I completely believe their claim that when their site was open, they got a lot of vulgar and inappropriate comments. And I think it’s perfectly reasonable of them to restrict write-access to people they have vetted in some way. But there’s absolutely no reason for them to restrict read access to most of their site. Except that they are hoping to coax CAS members to sign up to see what’s there, so they can claim that a lot of people support them by citing the number of people who have registered.

Yeah, not playing that game.

[Lucy]

This is a really hard election for me. There are two issues reflected in a lot of the questions and candidate statements:

Openness of the CAS
DEI

I expended a lot of energy fighting the CAS/SOA merger, and now I look at where the CAS is heading, and it’s already most of the way to being all the things I disliked about the SOA. If I’d known that’s what they were going to do, I don’t think I would have fought the merger. But it might not be too late to roll back some of that, and move more towards a group of actuaries who are striving to advance casualty actuarial science, and away from being a for-profit-in-all-but-legal-structure organization seeking to grow and maintain itself. And that first item, openness, is a large part of what I think has gone wrong, and what could be improved.

But I am also a strong advocate of the CAS’s DEI initiative. I think both that we need more diversity in profession (or at least, to remove a lot of the barriers that have kept many people out) and also that the CAS is uniquely positioned to uncover, publicize, and lobby to correct, inequities in insurance rating and other aspects of the insurance industry. And I think that falls squarely within our constitution and SOPs. The initial DEI framework wasn’t perfect. What is? But it was a good start, and I hope the CAS can be a strong advocate of DEI moving forward.

And the candidates that seem better on that first issue tend to be worse on the second, and vice versa.

So far, I have decided to vote for John Gleba and Amber Rohde. I will not be voting for Hines or Skurnick, who seem like really bad DEI choices.

John Gleba
I have worked with John on committees, and he is hardworking, fair, and careful. While I would have preferred if he had rejected his WLTC endorsement in stronger terms, I believe that he does favor DEI and he’s a strong “openness” candidate.

Amber Rohde
I do not know Amber outside of her candidacy. But I read her answers and found myself nodding in agreement over and over again. She appears to be a strong DEI candidate, and her answers to the questions about transparency and openness suggest that she recognizes the value of these to the organization and its members.

I’m hoping others will share their thoughts on the candidates. (Especially on the ones I am still trying to decide among.)

[Mountainhawk]

I’m going to be lazy and just paste my thoughts from Linked In here instead of writing it all out again:

Today is the beginning of the CAS election for the board (and President, but there is only 1 candidate there).

Much like the US as a whole, complacency in the profession allowed a hate group to flourish in our ranks, and now, we have at least 3 candidates that are actively running to dismantle the CAS DEI strategy that is vital to the future of our profession. Because let’s be clear – it doesn’t matter how good the CAS membership is at mathematical techniques, if the Casualty Actuarial Society membership doesn’t start to look more like the public it serves, we will lose the trust of the public and be ineffective and irrelevant in the future.

We can not continue to be less than 5% Black and less than 5% Hispanic. We can not continue to be less than 40% female. We can not continue to have a culture where LGBTQIA people are afraid to be public, and where any one supporting them are shouted down and threatened by an angry mob.

The WLTC hate group has endorsed 4 candidates. One of them has reached out to me and said he didn’t ask for or expect the endorsement, but the other three are Bergh, Hines, and Skurnick.

If you vote for the WLTC candidates, you are voting for a future where it’s perfectly ok for CAS members to call me mentally unfit for be an actuary solely for being transgender.

My management received anonymous emails trying to get me fired. Though my suspicion is that was not WLTC related, but one of my other ‘admirers’, that is the culture that the WLTC wants.

Rest assured much like the Republicans don’t care about protecting children’s lives, the WLTC doesn’t care about transparency. If they did, they wouldn’t do all their posting on a board hidden from public view. They want a future where unless you are a cisgender, heterosexual, white male, the profession is too intimidating for you.

I strongly endorse Amber Rohde, FCAS, Julie Lederer, and Len Llaguno for the CAS Board of Directors. The fourth choice is harder for me, but in no case should people that care about a diverse CAS consider voting for the trio of Bergh, Hines, and Skurnick.

You should have an email from the CAS with the title Vote now. 2022 CAS Elections (mine came around 1:50 am eastern time) if you are an FCAS or an ACAS with 5+ years of membership. Please vote and keep the CAS safe for people of color, for women, and for LGBTQIA people.

[Dara]

I voted for Belden, Lederer, Llaguno, and Rohde. The other 4 candidates were negative to very negative on DEI, to the point that I found myself not caring as much about their answers for the other questions. Rohde was by far my favorite and would have gotten my vote even if the pool of candidates was better.