Robin Lock, Section Chair, called the meeting to order at 5:45 pm, Wednesday, August 10, 2005 at the Minneapolis Convention Center, 103C. Those in attendance were:

1. Introductions

   Robin introduced the Section Officers.

2. Election Results

   Robin announced the election results: Chair-Elect 2006 (chair in 2007): Jessica Utts; Council of Sections representative (2006-2008): Carolyn Cuff; Executive Committee (2006-2008): Rob Gould, Norean Radke Sharpe.

3. Reports

   • Beth Chance, Secretary/Treasurer, asked for additional corrections to the minutes and reported that the section's revenues exceeded expenditures by about $2000. She highlighted expenditures in support of graduate students attending the SRTL conference, Project NExT fellows, the section mentoring program, and the JSM meeting (roundtables, outside speakers, program chair, business meeting).
   • Publications Officer, Sterling Hilton, reminded the section to consider putting announcements in Amstat News.
   • Newsletter editor, Brian Jersky, seconded this and announced that the next newsletter would be appearing in September, with August 31 as the deadline for submission of articles (brian.jersky@sonoma.edu).
   • Council of Sections representative, Katherine Halvorsen, announced that with the move to convention centers, the number of invited sessions will increase by 3 every other year (from 56-59 initially) but that the decision has not been made of how to allocate the additional sessions. Several measures of interest/attendance have been proposed and members should email her (khalvors@email.smith.edu) with additional ideas. She also announced that coffee roundtables are being considered, perhaps in the 4-5:50 time slot. Participants would be charged about $10 per person and the room would have approximately 5 tables which people could move around to. The ASA is also considering shorter, less expensive continuing education courses. One way to save costs is to not give presenters honoraria or travel expenses. Members should email her with additional ideas.
   • Carol Blumberg, organizer of a joint Stat Ed/IASE session, introduced Gilberte Schuyten, current IASE president and one of the speakers. Gilberte encouraged everyone to attend the upcoming ICOTS7 conference in Brazil (www.maths.otago.ac.nz/icots7).
   • 2005 program chair, Karen McGaughey, reported that there were 4 invited sessions, 6 contributed topic panels, 1 contributed topic paper session, and 34 contributed papers split into 5 sessions. She thanked everyone who contributed, especially the contributed paper session organizers, and congratulated the growing section.
   • 2006 program chair, Paul Roback (roback@stolaf.edu), highlighted the three invited sessions for next year (directions for the second statistics course, a statistician's summer reading list on hot topics in statistics, practical issues in conducting statistics education research) and two sessions submitted to the open competition (teaching statistics in 2 year colleges, and learning from and applying statistics education research results). Abstracts for contributed sessions are due Dec. 1- Feb. 1.
   • The 2007 program chair will be Patti Collings of Brigham Young University. Her immediate work is to organize the roundtable sessions and possibly the coffee roundtables for 2006. Email her with suggestions.
   • Next year's elections for the executive committee include 2 new at-large members and secretary/treasurer. Nominators and volunteers should contact Robin.
   • Joy announced 3 new pairings for the mentor program, in addition to the 6 pairings continuing from last year. Contact her with names of possible mentees. Thanks to the current mentors: Ann Cannon, George Cobb, Allan Rossman, Norean Sharpe, Brad Hartlaub, Dick DeVeaux, Jeff Witmer, Katherine Halvorsen, and John Holcomb. June Morita commented that other sections are excited about following this model. Joy said the program is in its pilot stage, but in the future it may be made more flexible (e.g., first five years in tenure track position, first five years conducting statistics education research, first five years of adjunct teaching).
   • Deb Rumsey announced that the first US Conference on Teaching Statistics (USCOTS), had over 300 attendees and they are planning to hold another conference in 2007. Further information can be found at causeweb.org.
   • Robin announced recent awards given to individuals in the section: four new fellows (Rich Alldredge, Beth Chance, Fred Djang, and Madhuri Mulekar), Founder's award (Joan Garfield), Harry C. Carver Award (Jessica Utts), and Mu Sigma Rho for Excellence in Teaching Award (Tom Short). The Fellows Nominating Committee (Rosemary Roberts, John McKenzie, and Bill Notz) are taking suggestions for future nominees.
   • The 2004 Best Contributed Paper Award was given to Edd Mansfield, Michael Conerly, and Mike Adams.
   • The 2005 Waller Education Award, established by Ray and Carolyn Waller to recognize an individual's excellence in teaching and undergraduate education within the first 10 years of their career was given to Roger Woodard.
   • Robin outlined recent activities of the executive committee:
     • Endorsement of the GAISE PreK-12 Report which has also been endorsed by the ASA.
     • Extended support of statisticians that are Project NeXT Fellows of the MAA.
     • Upcoming submission to the Committee on Meetings of a "Statistical Education Exposition" poster session, to be held during the first evening mixer, focused on teaching tips, activities, and data sets, with presenters exempt from the one speaker rule.
     • Formation of a task force to explore the formation of an advisory committee to the section on statistics education research. Currently Joan Garfield, Beth Chance, Chris Franklin, Paul Roback, Rob Gould, Sterling Hilton, and Robin Lock have agreed to design the structure of the committee.

4. New Business

   • Carolyn Cuff reported on a Strategic Initiative that came out of the Stat Ed section dealing with the interface/bi-directional pipeline between liberal arts colleges and R1 universities, including attracting new PhDs to teach at liberal arts colleges. Part of that initiative is creating a speaker's bureau of individuals at liberal arts colleges to help recruit young PhDs, e.g., at Career Fairs. Email her (ccuff@westminster.edu) if you want to be on the list that Doug Wolfe will be sending to department chairs.
   • Members of the Stat Ed executive committee and the executive committee for the Section on Teaching in the Health Sciences have been discussing possible joint projects and collaborations, possibly including joint membership.
   • Displeasure was expressed about this year's set up of the Stat Ed booth. We will ask ASA to return to the model of separate booths.
   • Allan Rossman was revealed to be the 2007 JSM Program Chair.
   • Email Robin Lock if you are interested in receiving a bulk order of "Stat Geek" buttons.
   • Robin thanked the executive committee members whose service is ending (Ron Wasserstein - past chair, John Walker and Joy Jordan - executive committee, Karen McGaughey - program chair) as well as Ron for administering the Contributed Paper award and the Stat Ed Booth volunteers.

Respectfully submitted,

Beth Chance
Secretary/Treasurer

Return to Section on Statistical Education Home Page.