Both of the quotations above are from Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein, the first couple of chapters of which I am using in the new enterprise risk management course I am teaching to informatics undergraduates this quarter. I thought it would be a good idea to give them a quick survey of how things stood before 1200, and then to see what Renaissance thinkers improved. They're reading these chapters (not the textbook for the course) up against the 2014 University of Washington Enterprise Risk Management Report to the Board of Trustees.
In this first class, it will be my job to explain also what an "enterprise" is, given that many undergraduates do not seem to be aware of the role that public and private companies play in our society.
Students will also draw out of a hat to determine what historical risk event their team will be responsible for presenting to the rest of the class during the quarter. See what you think, and whether you think anyone will be falling asleep during class. I'll report back later this week, when I describe what I'm doing in my graduate course that I've never taught before. In the meantime, here are the seven events I've selected to go into the hat tomorrow.