Garven Receives Teaching Award from American Risk and Insurance Association

Award recognizes finance professor's integrated teaching methods, accessibility outside office hours

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The American Risk and Insurance Association (ARIA) has named Baylor University's Dr. James Garven the recipient of its Excellence in Teaching award.

Garven, a professor of finance and insurance at Baylor's Hankamer School of Business, holds The Frank S. Groner Memorial Chair of Finance and also serves as Risk Management and Insurance (RMI) Program director at Baylor. ARIA is the premier international academic association for research in risk management and insurance.

"What sets Dr. Garven apart is his unique teaching methods and genuine care and concern for his students," said Katie Emler, a 2009 Baylor graduate who earned her BBA in risk management and insurance. "Rumors had circulated about Garven being the hardest professor in the business school, and others that Garven's class was the best class offered at Baylor. Both of these rumors proved to be true," she said.

Garven, who teaches at both the graduate and undergraduate level, uses a pedagogical approach oriented toward building deductive problem solving skills that are based upon principles of finance, economic and statistics.

"In spite of all that risk management insurance and finance have in common," he said, "only recently have attempts been made in scholarship and pedagogy to synthesize the two fields."

Garven integrates information technologies such as the Web, blogging, e-mail, social media and instant messaging to provide his students access to course materials and research at their convenience. It also means he's highly accessible and responsive when students want to ask a question or discuss an issue with him outside of typical office hours.

Another former student, Rakesh Arora, MBA '08, described Garven as "excellent, dedicated and approachable... His discussion bridged the gap between the practical application and academic theory."

ARIA initiated the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2007. This award recognizes excellence in risk management and insurance teaching. Applicants have a distinguished record of excellent teaching throughout their academic career. This award is a non-monetary award and is awarded only in years when an exceptional candidate is identified.

About Baylor Business

Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business holds to a visionary standard of excellence whereby integrity stands shoulder to shoulder with analytic and strategic strengths to build leaders, not simply careers. In addition to state-of-the-art skill development in the functional areas of business -- accounting, finance, marketing, information technology, management and others -- students develop ethics skills that yield credibility and true leadership potential in today's organizations.

Media Contact: Cynthia Jackson, Hankamer School of Business, (254) 710-7628