March 21, 2022 - Northern Kentucky University officially opened the Western & Southern Contact Center with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Campbell Hall. Dignitaries from both NKU and Western & Southern were on hand for the celebration.
“We are excited to partner with Western & Southern to provide this work-integrated learning opportunity for our students,” said NKU President Ashish Vaidya. “The new contact center will allow our students to work part-time and gain meaningful real-world experience while pursuing their degree simultaneously.”
The new contact center will allow students an opportunity for employment and engagement with one of the area’s most well-known companies. It is just the latest development in NKU’s partnership with Western & Southern, which has included the company’s participation in class projects, career fairs and other special occasions on campus.
“We are happy to have the opportunity to partner once again with NKU,” said John F. Barrett, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Western & Southern Financial Group. “NKU students bring exceptional talent to the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky region. We want to tap into that talent by helping them get to know Western & Southern and the great opportunities a career in financial services offers. We hope this leads to more NKU students staying here after graduation to work, raise a family and enjoy all our region has to offer.”
The opening of the contact center aids NKU in implementing one of its main goals: to provide a real-world experience for students while they are pursuing their education. Students can expect to perform a variety of duties at the center, including making outbound calls to life insurance applicants to verify application information as part of the underwriting process.
More than 200 hours of student work is expected to be available at the contact center, which will be open Monday through Friday during normal business hours. Work schedules will be flexible around a student’s class schedule.
About Western & Southern Financial Group: Founded in Cincinnati in 1888 as The Western and Southern Life Insurance Company, Western & Southern Financial Group, Inc., a Fortune 500 company, is the parent company of a group of diversified financial services businesses. Its assets owned ($66.9 billion) and managed ($44.7 billion) totaled $111.6 billion as of Dec. 31, 2021. Western & Southern is one of the strongest life insurance groups in the world. Its seven life insurance subsidiaries (The Western and Southern Life Insurance Company, Western-Southern Life Assurance Company, Columbus Life Insurance Company, Gerber Life Insurance Company, Integrity Life Insurance Company, The Lafayette Life Insurance Company, and National Integrity Life Insurance Company) maintain very strong financial ratings. Other member companies include Eagle Realty Group, LLC; Fort Washington Investment Advisors, Inc.;1 IFS Financial Services, Inc.; Touchstone Advisors, Inc.;1 Touchstone Securities, Inc.;2 W&S Brokerage Services, Inc.;1,2 and W&S Financial Group Distributors, Inc. Western & Southern is the title sponsor of seven major community events every year, including the Western & Southern Open, a premier event in the U.S. Open Series played each August by the world’s top-ranked professional male and female tennis players.
1 A registered investment adviser.
About NKU: Founded in 1968, NKU is an entrepreneurial state university of over 16,000 students served by more than 2,000 faculty and staff on a thriving suburban campus nestled between Highland Heights, Kentucky and bustling downtown Cincinnati. We are a regionally engaged university committed to empowering our students to have fulfilling careers and meaningful lives. While we are one of the fastest-growing universities in Kentucky, our professors still know our students' names. For more information, visit nku.edu.
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