Roxy Peck, Section Chair, called the meeting to order at 5:55pm, Wednesday, August 16, 2000. Those in attendance were:

1. Introductions

   Roxy Peck, Section Chair, introduced the current section officers and congratulated the newly elected section officers: Jeff Witmer, the 2001 Chair-Elect, Carolyn Dobler, Secretary/Treasurer, and Ann Cannon and Brad Hartlaub, Executive Committee.

2. Minutes and Treasurer's Report

   The minutes of the 1999 business meeting of the Statistical Education Section were distributed and approved with the following corrections: JSE stands for "Journal of Statistics Education"; Jeff Witmer was not congratulated as a newly elected fellow last year; Robin Lock (rlock@stlawu.edu) was present.

   The June 30, 1999 financial statement showed a balance of $11,303. Revenue from last year, including dues, was just under $5000. Expenses from last year, mostly from the newsletter, were about $2000. The Section was encouraged to finds ways to spend the surplus on activities for the benefit of its members. The Treasurer's report was accepted.

3. Announcements

   Roxy congratulated Robin Lock and John McKenzie as newly named Fellows of the ASA.

   Ron Wasserstein presented Ginger Holmes Rowell with the Best Contributed Paper Award for her paper on Biostatistics Laboratory Activities. He commented that her paper received the second highest rating of the roughly 300 papers he has coordinated.

   Roxy thanked Tom Short and Jim Matis for the outstanding JSM program this year.

4. Reports from Program Chairs

   Tom Short, 2000 Program Chair, thanked Chris McLaren for selecting him and various people for their advice, especially Brad Hartlaub. He also thanked Jim Matis for organizing the Roundtables, and Bob delMas, Joan Garfield, and John Holcomb for organizing the invited sessions. He commented on the challenge of scheduling sessions because there was so much of interest to the Statistical Education Section. Roxy reminded everyone of the CMBS session the next day.

   Jim Matis, the 20001 Program Chair, thanked Roxy Peck for appointing him, and all of the roundtable leaders. He reported that the JSM program for 2001 was already in great shape. The 3 allotted invited sessions were set August 4: Implementing Guidelines for Undergraduate Programs in Statistics (organized by Allan Rossman), Nuts and Bolts of Teaching Modern Topics (organized by Katherine Taylor Halvorsen) and Use of Technology in Teaching Mathematical Statistics (organized by Jay Devore). He also mentioned that there would be three sessions submitted by outside organizations of interest to the section: from the AERA (submitted by George Cobb), the Council of Chapters (on the ASA chapters' role in quantitative literacy) and the NSF (on current programs related to statistical education). He also encouraged people to sponsor panel sessions, special topic contributed sessions (deadline Jan. 15), and roundtables (which may change to include the participant names at the table). The contributed paper deadline is Feb. 1.

   Allan Rossman announced that the 2002 program chair will be John Holcomb. John said he was honored and already had nine ideas for invited sessions. He reported that he will be putting roundtable sessions together in November and December for next year.

5. Report from the Section Chair

   Roxy reported that section membership dipped below 1,000 this year (991) and so we lost a seat on the Council of Sections so that John Boyer will not be replaced in the next election. This number is refigured on an annual basis and the Executive Committee is looking for ways to increase section membership.

   She reported that the Executive Committee approved funding requests for the Making Statistics More Effective in Schools of Business Conference and the Undergraduate Data Analysis Contest. The Executive Committee also offered support to Mu Sigma Rho's new teaching award.

   She also reported that we needed to make more use of the money in our account.

6. Undergraduate Statistics Education Initiative

   George Cobb summarized the initiative and its history. At the end of the symposium, in order to maintain momentum, it was suggested that the next step would be to send a short version of the recommendations to the ASA Board for approval. The recommendations are posted on the web (www.amstat.org/ meetings/jsm/2000/symposium.html) and revisions are expected in the next 3-4 weeks. The Board of Directors will meet again in December and any proposal must be sponsored by a Section or Chapter. Roxy mentioned that in an effort to move quickly but also to receive feedback from the entire section, the Executive Committee approved a special edition of the Newsletter to be mailed first class to all members at the beginning of October, with a summary of the proposal and links to the revised papers on the web. Comments on the proposal will be sent to Roxy, collected, and disseminated to the Executive Committee, who will synthesize and provide feedback to the writing team. The writing team will have another opportunity to address the concerns and revise the proposal. The section was asked to delegate responsibility to the Executive Committee to read the final draft and make a decision of whether or not to endorse it. If the Executive Committee endorses the proposal, it will be forwarded to the Board of Directors from the Section on Statistical Education.

   During discussion it was clarified that the proposal would include discussion (and examples) of minors and concentrations. Mary Parker asked for help in compiling descriptions of such programs at different schools. Dick Scheaffer commented on the desire to have the Board of Directors approve a global statement of the initiative up front, to enhance the visibility and viability of the proposal, in hopes of preventing the movement from dying as the last one did. This would also allow input from the Board as the initiative is being developed, as well as visibility on the ASA webpage, publications, board actions and funding. Also, having the Board only approve a short document will reduce the number of follow up approvals needed. He also commented that the Board is very friendly to education right now and that the recommendations could be woven into the MAA guidelines. Other efforts for dissemination were discussed such as a spokesman from the Section posting an official message and/or a copy of the newsletter to edstat-l.

   The proposal to have the Executive Committee review the feedback and make the decision about endorsement was unanimously approved. Roxy reminded members to look for the special edition of the newsletter around Oct. 1.

7. Council of Sections Report

   Anne Sevin reported that the ASA wants to put the Section Proceedings on a CD-ROM, eliminating the paper version. The cost for the CD for all sections would be about $20-25, and papers from any conference sponsored by the section throughout the year could be included. The papers would be in pdf format and would continue to not be copyrighted but would be licensed. The cost/proceeds would be divided among the sections which have papers in the Proceedings in proportion to the number of pages. Roxy mentioned that we have made a small amount of money from the Proceedings in the past, but that this would ensure that a much broader audience would get access to Statistical Educational papers. The commitment to try the CD-ROM is for one year.

   It was suggested that the JSM registration fee could be increased by this amount, but it was argued that our section represents some of the poorer institutions and might not want to argue for increasing registration fees, and that not everyone who wanted the Proceedings attended the meetings.

8. Announcements

   Carol Blumberg distributed brochures for the next ICOTS conference to be held in South Africa, July, 2002. She reported that she and Jackie Dietz were serving as National Correspondents for the IASE.

   Jackie Dietz reported that JSE was entering its ninth year of publication and announced that Tom Short of Villanova is the new Editor (effective January 1, 2001). The Board of Directors also approved making JSE free of charge again effective 2001.

   Dick Scheaffer reported that the ASA was debating what to do with CHANCE magazine and encouraged supporters to be more vocal, as well as anyone with ideas of how to make it more viable.

   Roxy encouraged everyone to apply to be an Advanced Placement reader and gave the website for applications (www.collegeboard.org/ap/readers/apply.html). Anyone interested should apply soon as they start making appointments in October.

   Joe Ward mentioned a possible proposal through the Council of Chapters suggesting an ASA initiative to match money to chapter or individuals who make donations to regional science fairs.

   Terry King requested ideas and articles for the section newsletter.

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 6:55.

Respectfully Submitted,
Marilynn Dueker
Secretary/Treasurer

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