Actuarial science has been studied in some form at the University of Melbourne since the introduction of the Bachelor of Commerce (BCom). In its earliest days, the degree was designed to be a broad education in the various pursuits of a businessperson in Australia and actuarial insurance was offered as a subject that students could take in their final year.
At this time in the 1920s and 30s, the field was going through a boom – the effects of the First World War had rapidly changed Australian lives and the economy. Commonwealth statisticians contributed greatly to the war recovery and the establishment of what is now known as the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Momentum grows
In the late 1960s, Macquarie University established the first degree in Australia for those wanting to become an actuary. In response to growing interest at the University of Melbourne, an agreement was struck in 1988, which allowed second-year BCom students at Melbourne to take actuarial classes at Macquarie via distance education. This lasted for five years as pressure for an actuarial specialisation on-campus continued to grow.
In 1992, however, the enthusiasm had spread across the student body as well as Melbourne’s professional actuarial community. By the start of the year, three academic actuarial staff were appointed, and the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Actuarial Studies was officially opened. It sat, as it does today, in the Department of Economics of the Faculty of Business and Economics.
A Centre is started
One of those first three academic staff appointed was Emeritus Professor David Dickson, who stayed until retirement and his appointment to Emeritus Professor in 2019. Over that time, he served multiple years as the Centre’s director, as well as time as Head of the Department of Economics.
When the Centre was founded, Dickson moved from the UK to work here, and remembers those early days with fondness. The biggest difference compared to today, he recalls, was the size of the cohort.
“In my first class in 1993, there were no more than 15 students,” he said. “You really knew everyone.”
This sense of tight-knit community continues today, even as class sizes have grown.
A new approach to the discipline
The introduction of the Centre for Actuarial Studies brought changes to how the profession was taught across all levels of the faculty. The Centre’s first annual report in 1993 reflects on the changes made.
“We believe that a single course with this content has not been previously presented within an actuarial program,” the report says.
“[The changes] will mean that the actuarial undergraduates’ education at the University of Melbourne will provide future students with both the required actuarial skills and an appreciation of how these skills can be applied in a wider field.”
In 1996, an honours program was established, including two subjects that had not previously been offered in Australia. In that same year, the Centre’s foundation professor, Dr David Knox, was named Actuary of the Year by the Institute of Actuaries of Australia.
By the 2000s, the Centre was excelling, with many of the best performing students in the BCom being actuarial students.
In 2011, a Master of Actuarial Science was added, a two-year program designed for graduates coming to actuarial studies from broader mathematical or statistical backgrounds. It continues today.
Remembering Mark Joshi
Few people have represented the Centre’s exceptional academic output and strong sense of community more than the late Professor Mark Joshi. A beloved colleague and popular teacher, Joshi died unexpectedly in 2017, while he was Centre director.
“You can always fill a job opening again, but you can’t replace someone like Mark,” said Emeritus Professor Dickson.
Upon his passing, Associate Professor Dan Zhu, now with Monash University, wrote:
“To many of us, we lost a friend, a mentor, an inspiration. Most importantly, we lost a great mind and the great possibilities behind this great mind.”
The Mark Joshi Memorial Prize is awarded in his honour.
Continuing leadership on the international stage
Melbourne actuarial graduates continue to shape the discipline across the country and the world. Dr Edward Leung, the first person to graduate with a PhD from the Centre, has worked across the finance sector, and is currently a partner of Marshall Precious Metals Fund in Hong Kong.
Closer to home, Jackie Li, the first of the Centre’s graduates to rise to a professorial position, leads Monash University’s actuarial program. Nikki Grinstein, who achieved honours in Actuarial Science, has combined a fine actuarial career with a passion for helping people with disability access education.
In 2023, a ranking by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln placed the Centre second globally in business schools for research in leading actuarial journals.
Thirty-two years since it was established, the Centre for Actuarial Studies at the University of Melbourne continues to be the focal point for the discipline in Victoria.
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