As president of the MTSU chapter of the Gamma Iota Sigma
insurance fraternity, senior Cierra Baker of Athens, Tennessee, can quickly
rattle off the benefits of being a member of the honorary professional group.
“You meet a lot people in the industry,” Baker said. “A lot
of internships (are available) in the industry and a lot of scholarships.”
A finance and insurance major in the Jennings A. Jones
College of Business, Baker is scheduled to graduate this December, with an
internship lined up back home in Athens and with plans to get into sales once
she gets her degree.
That’s good news to Julie Mix McPeak, commissioner for the
Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance and guest speaker Wednesday,
April 13, for the induction ceremony for the newest members of Gamma Iota Sigma
inside the Business and Aerospace Building.
“I’m pleased to see so many of you choosing insurance as a
major,” McPeak told Baker and the other students, faculty, staff and alumni in
attendance. “We really need bright people to be joining our industry right now.
… And when you have those degrees, don’t forget about government service,
because we need you too.”
Appointed in January 2011 by Gov. Bill Haslam to lead the department
of 900-plus employees, McPeak gave an overview of her department’s
responsibilities, including the critical roles of TennCare oversight, licensing
insurance agents — Tennessee has more than 160,000 licensed agents — and making
sure companies selling insurance in the state “are capable of meeting its
obligations to consumers.”
The purpose of Gamma Iota Sigma is to encourage, establish
and enhance the professionalism of students in the risk management, insurance,
and actuarial science majors within the Jones College.
Inductee and MTSU senior Bashair Albalushi, an international
student from Oman majoring in business finance and minoring in insurance, said
her interest in joining the fraternity blossomed once she learned of the
community service work that members do, such as homeless outreach.
“I think it will help me out as well when I graduate,” she
said, adding that she’ll include fraternity membership on her resume. Also
scheduled to graduate in December, Albalushi plans to pursue a master’s degree
in finance and eventually land a banking position in the Chicago area.
MTSU junior and inductee Aaliyah Yisrael, a finance and
insurance major from Jackson, Tennessee, said she took her first insurance
class this spring and credited the encouragement of Dr. Emily Zietz, insurance
professor in the Department of Economics and Finance, for prompting her to join
the fraternity.
Yisrael said she’s looking forward to “getting to know
people in the field” through Gamma Iota Sigma as well as seeing which areas of
insurance she most enjoys. Right now, she’s leaning toward insurance
underwriting.
For more information about Gamma Iota Sigma, visit http://www.mtsu.edu/gis/. For more
information about MTSU’s insurance program, visit http://mtsu.edu/programs/insurance/.
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