1. JSM Programs Ready to Go!
2. Congratulations to New Fellows!
3. SSS Program Highlights
4. Awards and Scholarships
5. Let’s Do Lunch with GSS at JSM
6. GSS Co-Sponsors Strategic Initiative
7. The Election Results Are In…
8. Historical Proceedings Index
9. 2002 JSM Proceedings Are Out…
10. Join the GSSLIST
11. 2003 JSM Sessions Sponsored by GSS and SSS
12. Section Officers and Contacts

JSM Programs Ready to Go!
Nancy Bates, GSS Program Chair

I am pleased to announce that all the planning, hard work, and coordination between GSS members, program officers, and ASA staff has paid off dividends for the GSS this year. Our sessions for San Francisco represent an incredibly diverse set of topics, most of which deal with applied themes that are relevant to a broad audience, including government statisticians, survey methodologists, demographers, policy program officials, and economists.

The final GSS program boasts 3 invited paper sessions, 1 invited panel, 10 topic contributed paper sessions, 1 topic contributed panel, 3 regular contributed paper sessions, and several posters. See the "pull-out" section of this newsletter for the GSS/SSS events being offered this year.

My thanks go out to the organizers of our invited and topic contributed paper and panel sessions – you made my job easy! Thanks also to GSS members who volunteered to chair sessions. The GSS program for 2003 covers a broad spectrum of interests sure to attract ASA members from a variety of sections and disciplines. Arrive early and often!

Congratulations to New Fellows!

Congratulations to the GSS/SSS Section members who were elected Fellows of the American Statistical Association this year! The following will be among those honored at the Joint Statistical Meetings on Tuesday evening:

Mary Batcher
Lawrence Brown
John Czajka
Carol House
Sarah Nusser
Trivellore Raghunathan
Marilyn Seastrom
Nancy Spruill
Alan Tupek

SSS JSM Highlights
Susan Schechter, SSS Program Chair

For those of you who have not yet viewed the online JSM 2003 program, here is a preview of our section’s program. First, this year we have two Invited Paper sessions and one Invited Panel. The first is Exploring the New Frontier: Cross-Cultural Issues in Questionnaire Design, which will be held Sunday, August 3^rd at 2:00 p.m. The second, How to Design a National Survey of the Homeless, will be on Monday, August 4^th at 2:00 p.m. And on Tuesday, August 5^th at 8:30 a.m. we will sponsor an Invited Panel, How Can Statisticians Contribute to Homeland Security?

There are two Social Statistics Roundtable Luncheon Topics—Potential Uses of the American Community Survey and The Nuts and Bolts of a Data Security Program at a Federal Statistical Agency. We are also the lead sponsor for the following six Topic Contributed Sessions:

• Causal Inferences in the Social Sciences;
• Evaluation of Observer Agreement for Continuous Measurement;
• Are the Rich Getting Richer and the Poor Getting Poorer—Three Viewpoints;
• Recent Advances in Educational Statistics;
• Measuring Economic Wellbeing Using the Survey of Income and Program Participation;
• Women Wealth and Health: Employment, Pensions and Poverty

In addition, Social Statistics is sponsoring many contributed sessions with relevant topics to our membership, such as measurement of social issues, modeling, questionnaire design, data quality, editing, and survey design. Last, don’t forgot to come on Wednesday, August 6^th at 8:30 a.m. to hear the Winning Papers from our Student Competition.

A word of thanks to all of the session organizers for this year’s JSM program – you were great to work with and I appreciate your efforts to pull together excellent sessions. I look forward to seeing everyone in San Francisco!

Bureau of Economic Analysis
Energy Information Administration
Internal Revenue Service
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Social Security Administration
U.S. Census Bureau
U.S. Department of Agriculture
U.S. Department of Transportation

The Social Statistics Section, along with the Government Statistics Section and the Washington Statistical Society, will present their 2003 recipient of the Roger Herriot Award for Innovation in Federal Statistics at the Joint Statistical Meetings in San Francisco. Session 348 at the JSM – Towards the Integration of Demographic, Survey, and Modeling Methods -- has been designated as this year’s Herriot Award Session.

The annual award is presented to a statistician who exemplifies the qualities of Roger Herriot, who was the Associate Commissioner for Statistical Standards and Methodology at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) before he died in 1994. The award recognizes the recipient’s unique contributions to solving difficult statistical problems in federal data collection efforts—a key trait of Roger’s. Last year’s recipient was Jeanne Griffith. The award committee consists of Sameena Salvucci (SSS), Phil Kott (GSS), and Jerry Gates (WSS, Chair).

Congratulations to Ms. Yun Li of Bowling Green State University, winner of the 2^nd annual Wray Jackson Smith Scholarship (WJSS) Award! The Government Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association (ASA) sponsors a scholarship in memory of Wray Jackson Smith, a founding member of the section and long-time contributor to federal statistics. The WJSS, co-sponsored with the Social Statistics Section of ASA, the Washington Statistical Society, the Caucus for Women in Statistics, Mathematica Policy Research, and Synectics for Management Decisions, Inc., is intended to reward promising young statisticians for their diligence, thereby encouraging them to consider a future in government statistics. Ms. Li will use the Wray Jackson Smith Scholarship to fund continued public policy research at the Bowling Green State University Center for Policy Analysis and Public Service. Her work was recently presented at the Mid-Continent Regional Science Association annual conference in Cleveland, Ohio.

Nominations for the WJSS are accepted each Spring. Look for announcements in the Amstat News and through this newsletter – and help us spread the word. Individuals and organizations interested in contributing to this very worthy effort should contact the WJSS Committee at asher@stat.cmu.edu. Contributions to the Wray Jackson Smith Scholarship Fund are tax deductible.

The Jeanne E. Griffith Mentoring Award Committee is pleased to announce that its first award has been given to Richard D. Allen, Deputy Administrator for Program and Products for the National Agricultural Statistics Service. Rich Allen is recognized for his impact on the lives and careers of junior staff. The Griffith Mentoring Award was established to encourage the mentoring of younger staff in the federal statistical system. The award is co-sponsored by the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy, the Council of Excellence in Government, the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, the Washington Statistical Society, and the Social and Government Statistics Sections of the ASA.

Winners of the 2003 Student Paper Competition
Susan Schechter, Social Statistics Section
Nancy Bates, Government Statistics Section
Howard Hogan, Survey Research Methods Section

The Social Statistics, Government Statistics, and Survey Research Methods Sections are pleased to announce the five winners of the student and postgraduate paper competition. These papers will be presented at a specially organized Topic Contributed Session sponsored by the three sections – Session #321, on Wednesday, August 6, at 8:30 a.m.

Each of the following winners will receive a subsidy of $800 to cover JSM 2003 expenses:

• Jessica Kohlschmidt, Ohio State University: Handling Missing Data: Union Formation Issues and Those Lost to Follow-Up
• Markus Prior, Stanford University and visiting fellow at Princeton University: More Than a Thousand Words? Visual Cues and Visual Knowledge
• Xiang Ling, Ohio State University: A Bayesian Hierarchical Approach to Modeling Spatial Variation of the Ohio Debt Stress Index with Missing Addresses
• Guanglei Hong, University of Michigan: Causal Inference for Multi-level Observation Data with Application to the Kindergarten Retention Study
• David Friedenberg, Miami University: A Multivariate Statistical Analysis of the Free World

We received excellent papers this year and selecting the winners was a challenge. We encourage all students to watch for the Competition 2004 announcement and apply. To be eligible to participate in the competition, you must be a current undergraduate or graduate student at any level or be a 2003 graduate who presents research conducted as a student.

Thanks again to all the students who submitted papers to this year’s competition. Let’s show support to our JSM ‘03 winners with good attendance to their Special Contributed Topic Session on August 6^th !

The Government Statistics Section is sponsoring four timely roundtable luncheon discussions on a diverse range of topics at the Joint Statistical Meetings this year –

• David Banks, of the Food and Drug Administration, will focus on Government Statistics in Homeland Defense. Come discuss some of the ways that federal statisticians can and do work across agencies to contribute to the war on terrorism. Potential topics are classification rules, risk analysis, biometric identification, biosurveillance, and confidentiality protection.

• Speaking of confidentiality, Steve Fienberg of Carnegie Mellon University will lead a second roundtable discussion on Keeping Government Data Confidential. This discussion will focus on a wide range of confidentiality and disclosure limitation issues for government data, including data that may be used for homeland security and bioterrorism detection.

• Not a federal statistician? Not a problem! You too can contribute to the federal statistical system through contract work. A third roundtable discussion, led by David Morganstein of Westat, will discuss Contracting for the Federal Government. Come speak with experienced contractors about how they became involved in government work and what types of projects may become available for statisticians employed outside of the government.

• Last but not least, Diane Willimack of the U.S. Census Bureau and Jacqui Jones of the Office for National Statistics, United Kingdom will lead a discussion titled Establishment Survey Questionnaire Development and Design: Is It Time for a Book? The discussion leaders will outline their ideas for such a book and ask attendees for input and ideas.

Seats are still available, the price is down, and a hot lunch will be served this year – no box lunches! The luncheons will be spread over three days, so that those who are interested can attend more than one. Sign up on the ASA Web site; reserve your seat now!

GSS Co-Sponsors Strategic Initiative

The GSS is pleased to announce that it co-sponsored a successful submission for funding from the ASA’s Strategic Initiative Fund. The proposal that was funded is for a two-day conference on Statistical Issues in Counterterrorism, developed by Nancy Spruill and David Banks. For more information on their plans, check out the luncheon discussion and invited paper session on the same subject.

SSS Business Meeting and Reception
Mon, Aug 4th 5:30-7:00 PM H Union Sq 9

GSS Business Meeting and Reception	
Tues, Aug 5th 5:30-7:00 PM H Union Sq 14

The Government Statistics Section is pleased to welcome:

• Chair (2005) -- Chet Bowie, U.S. Census Bureau
• Program Chair (2005) -- Brian Harris-Kojetin, Office of Management and Budget
• Council of Sections Rep -- Dan Kasprzyk, Mathematica Policy Research

The Social Statistics Section winners are:

• Chair (2005) -- Gerald W. Gates, U.S. Census Bureau
• Program Chair (2005) -- Renee H. Miller, Energy Information Administration
• Secretary/Treasurer -- Susan M. Hinkins, University of Chicago
• Council of Sections Rep -- Trivellore E. Raghunathan, University of Michigan

Congratulations to you all!

Last fall SSS completed its electronic index of all its past Proceedings from 1958 to 1999. These are available in a fully searchable format on the Section’s web page for general use. The index is being updated with papers from later Proceedings.

For most of this period the volumes contain all the papers for what are now three sections: Government, Survey Research and, of course, Social Statistics. This makes the index invaluable to a wide range of practitioners and we look forward to its general use. One project that members of Social Statistics are considering is to use the index to collect and republish papers on selected topics that have continuing interest. A volume on Human Rights issues, broadly conceived, is already available on the section’s web site.

We would welcome further ideas and proposals at any time, but especially at the business meeting in San Francisco in August.

You didn't get your publication of the 2002 Proceedings for the Sections on Government Statistics and Social Statistics? The CD-Rom contains the Proceedings for the Sections on Government Statistics and Social Statistics, as well as ALL other sections, and is very moderately priced at $35. If you haven't ordered your copy, it is not too late. Order your copy today by going to the ASA Web site at http://www.amstat.org/publications/ .

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Wendy Alvey
Chair, 2003
wendy.l.alvey@census.gov

Nathaniel Schenker
Chair, 2004
nschenker@cdc.gov

John Czajka
Chair, 2002
jczajka@mathematica-mpr.com

Nancy Bates
Program Chair, 2003
nancy.a.bates@census.gov

Jana Asher
Program Chair, 2004
asher@stat.cmu.edu

Connie Citro
Secretary/Treasurer
ccitro@nas.edu

Stephanie Shipp
Council of Sections Rep
sshipp@nist.gov

Shelly Ver Ploeg
Publications Officer
sverploe@nas.edu

Pat Doyle
COPAFS Rep, 2002-2003
patricia.j.doyle@census.gov

Clyde Tucker
COPAFS Rep, 2003-2004
tucker_j@bls.gov

John Dixon
Newsletter Editor
dixon_j@bls.gov

Bill Wong
Assistant Editor, Amstat Online
william.wong@irs.gov

Tai Phan
GSSLIST Coordinator
tai.phan@ed.gov

Bill Smith
ASA Ex Officio
williambsmith@amstat.org

Social Statistics Section

Colm O’Muircheartaigh
Chair, 2003
colm@norcmail.uchicago.edu

Colm O’Muircheartaigh
Chair, 2004
colm@norcmail.uchicago.edu

Fritz Scheuren
Chair, 2002
scheuren@aol.com

Susan Schechter
Program Chair, 2003
susan_schechter@omb.eop.gov

Jonaki Bose
Program Chair, 2004
jonaki.bose@bts.gov

Judith Lessler
Secretary/Treasurer
lessler@rti.org

Gerald Gates
Council of Sections Rep
gerald.w.gates@census.gov

Stanley Wasserman
Publications Officer
stanwass@uiuc.edu

David Nichols
Assistant Editor, Amstat Online
nichols@spss.com

Steve Porzio
ASA Ex Officio
steve@amstat.org

The Government Statistics Section and the Social Statistics Section express their thanks to Laurie Logan for publishing the GSS-SSS Newsletter.