The recent turbulence in the US financial markets affects all of us on a very personal level. We have received many general inquiries as to the safety of our participants’ retirement accounts, as well as specific questions regarding the financial stability of our two general account providers, Minnesota Life and TIAA-CREF. While the University cannot make any prediction concerning any individual account, we can tell you that our retirement vendors are subject to regular review and oversight.

Both Minnesota Life and TIAA-CREF are rated very highly by Standard & Poors, AM Best, Fitch and Moody's. Please refer to the Minnesota Life or TIAA CREF Web sites for additional information on their ratings and comparison groups.

Each year, representatives of Securian appear before the Retirement Subcommittee, which includes faculty, P&A and civil service representatives as well as representatives from the University’s Department of Investment and Banking, to review the underlying holdings in the Minnesota Life General Account in detail and respond to questions from the Subcommittee. The last review was conducted in April of 2008. Details may be found in the minutes from the April 7, 2008 Retirement Subcommittee meeting. The review included an examination of the Minnesota Life General Account's exposure to subprime mortgage investments (which was extremely small), as well as the composition of the remainder of the assets of the General Account at Minnesota Life.

Each quarter, both the Retirement Subcommittee and the Retirement Fiduciary Advisory Committee review the performance of the funds in the Faculty Retirement Plan against the funds’ various benchmarks. The Retirement Fiduciary Advisory Committee is then charged with recommending any action that it deems advisable.

In short, while no one can say whether the current market turbulence will affect your retirement accounts, the University has in place an oversight structure that assures that its retirement plans function as they should to allow participants to pursue their individual objectives with respect to their long-term retirement savings.