Former ASA President Michael O'Fallon has said, "The diversity found in our profession is something to celebrate, I believe, because it makes us stronger." How do we further that diversity, not only in our practice and teaching of statistics, but also in the racial, ethnic, and gender backgrounds of our membership? No part of this question has an easy answer. Certainly doors have been opened inside our country (through the 1964 Civil Rights Act, for example) and doors were also opened into our country (through the major Immigration Reforms begun in 1965).

ASA has directly benefited by both of these changes, especially in the growth of members coming from China, India, and other parts of Asia. Asians now constitute about 16% of our membership. Growth in ASA membership among Hispanics, Native Americans, and African Americans has not been as great. In fact, these groups all remain underrepresented. Why? The quality of our preparatory schools in the United States has been one of the factors blamed but there are still other factors. A lack of interest in statistics as a profession among talented minority students is certainly among them.

In a recent article in Science the statement is made that America is simply not keeping up with the rest of the developed world in the number of science PhDs. If this is to change, minorities must be qualified in greater numbers and drawn to scientific fields (including, it might be added, statistics). What can ASA do about this? The ASA Committee on Minorities in Statistics has been developing some answers to this question. Two of their recent efforts, done in collaboration with the Social Statistics Section (among others), are described below.

Minority Recruiting Efforts

The ASA Committee on Minorities in Statistics held two conferences for undergraduates, both partly cosponsored by the Social Statistics Section--one on November 10, 2001, at Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia, and one on April 13, 2002, at Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia. The purpose of these conferences was to stimulate and interest African-American undergraduate students in the statistical sciences and to provide information about graduate school and employment opportunities available to statisticians in the many different areas of industry, government, and academia. Both conferences were highly successful with more than 100 participants in each location.

At Spelman College, Drs. Nagambal Shah (Professor, Spelman College) and Gladys Reynolds (Senior Statistician, Center for Disease Control) were conference coordinators. For the opening session at Spelman, Dr. Walter W. Williams, Associate Director for Minority Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gave the keynote address, "Statisticians Shape the Nation's Health." He emphasized the contributions of statisticians in planning and implementing large studies and surveys that provide information on the health and well-being of the nation and shape our health policy.

Conference coordinators at Hampton were Dr. Douglas DePriest, Associate Professor, Mathematics Department, Dr. Carolyn Morgan, Chair, Mathematics Department, and, again, Dr. Gladys Reynolds. Dr. Morris H. Morgan III, Dean of the School of Engineering and Technology, and Dr. DePriest gave welcoming remarks. For the opening session, Dr. Fritz Scheuren, Vice President for Statistics, NORC, University of Chicago, and Chair, Social Statistics Section, ASA, gave the keynote address, "Statistical Disaster and Success Stories?" a theme taken from a note by Nick Fisher asking for such stories in Amstat News last winter. The talk was based in part on the book by Edward Tufte, Visual and Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Making Decisions (made available to the attendees).

More details on the Conferences, including pictures, are posted on the Social Statistics Section web site.

JSM Session on Minority Issues

At the New York Joint Statistical Meetings this summer there was an invited panel session, cosponsored by the Social Statistics Section, on "Recruiting and Retaining Minorities in Statistics." The panelists were Kimberly S. Weems, (North Carolina State University), Nagambal D. Shah (Spelman College), Carolyn Morgan (Hampton University), José G. Ramírez (W.L. Gore & Associates), and Theda McPheron-Keel (Wind Hollow Foundation). Donald E. K. Martin (Howard University and the U. S. Census Bureau) chaired, and Christopher L. Stanard (GE Global Research) was the organizer.

The panelists covered a lot of ground, beginning with the common sense notation that we need to start by showing our own love for the field of statistics and providing inclusive environments where respect, reward, and credit for one's ideas and work, and freedom from harassment, discrimination, and bias are the norm for all minorities. Of course, this is not enough. At the undergraduate and graduate levels, there was some feeling that potential minority statistics students are often not highly recruited, and with very few prominent minority statisticians having name recognition, the subject simply does not show up on an undergraduate's radar. The road to success in other fields is far clearer for talented young minorities to see.

Given the vibrancy and diversity within our profession, however, the panelists stressed that statistics offers all kinds of work that can appeal to mathematically, scientifically, and technically minded youth. It would seem that targeted efforts to increase minority inclusion are necessary, though, in order to make any meaningful change. Reaching out in conferences, like those at Spelman and Hampton, seems to work and should be done more. Efforts through school visits and ASA chapter activities also were mentioned. There need to be more partnerships--undergraduate institutions with high schools, with other undergraduate institutions, graduate schools, and government agencies, with private foundations, associations such as the ASA, and other such groups all reaching out to do their part.

Given the space available here, it is impossible to do justice to the ideas of all the panelists. For the full text of the panel's remarks, see the "2002 Proceedings of the American Statistical Association," Social Statistics Section, available in February 2003.