I am an adjunct faculty instructor in leadership and management for Baker Online. After an early career in mental health, I worked for over 30 years for an educational institute that teaches risk management and insurance to professional people in those fields. As a member of its senior management, I was responsible for a number of various functions: examinations, management curriculum, matriculation and student services, instructor support for in-person classes, online classes, marketing, human resources, and strategic planning.
I earned a B.A. in English from Kutztown University, an M.S.S. in Clinical Casework from Bryn Mawr College, and a Ph.D. in Social Policy and Social Research from Bryn Mawr College. I also earned the CPCU professional designation (risk management and insurance) from the American Institute for CPCU and the Associate in Management from the Insurance Institute of America. I have attended a residential executive education program at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, additional seminars there, and numerous other training and education conferences held by societies and associations.
As an educator, I was an active member and president of the Society of Insurance Trainers and Educators, a national professional society of insurance trainers and educators. I was a member of various other professional associations: CPCU Society; American Educational Research Association, American Society for Training and Development, American Society for Human Resource Management, and the Delaware County Society for Quality and Participation.
Ph.D - Educational Leadership; Higher Education Administration
1991, Bryn Mawr College, Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research
A social control model of occupational licensing and its application to insurance agent licensing
UMI AAT 9126988
Drawing upon a review of sociological, legal, political, and economic perspectives, this study develops a social control model of occupational licensing and identifies seven social control objectives. Pennsylvania statutes and administrative regulations were analyzed to determine support for the seven objectives, and statistical data regarding insurance agent licensing, disciplinary actions, and license examinations for 1987 through 1990 were examined for quantitative measures of the achievement of specific social control objectives.
The findings confirm that licensing insurance agents serves the seven social control objectives, most significantly, the proscription of certain behavior, the establishment and imposition of sanctions, and the establishment of a required knowledge base about the insurance mechanism. Despite many complaints of policy misrepresentation, disciplinary actions primarily result for breaches of fiduciary responsibility. Analysis of 1990 license examination performance reveals that license candidates obtain generally adequate knowledge of insurance regulation and insurance basics, and less, but still adequate, knowledge about the major lines of insurance. The study concludes that a social control model of occupational licensing has a wide range of utility because licensing can thus be evaluated in important noneconomic terms and its operation strengthened through social control processes rather than economic processes.