SIGMAA on Statistics Education

Minutes of the 2004 SIGMAA meeting at the Joint Mathematics Meetings
Thursday, January 8, 2004, 5:45 – 6:45 pm
Phoenix, Arizona

 

Those in Attendance
Thirty-five people attended the meeting.  Their names and school affiliations are listed at the end of the minutes.

Reception
The meeting began with a reception.

Welcome
Carolyn Cuff, chair, welcomed everyone, encouraged them to eat, and opened the meeting by having everyone introduce themselves. 

I.    Approval of Minutes
The minutes from the January 16, 2003 meeting were approved. (http://www.pasles.org/sigmaastat/minutes2003.html).   John McKenzie noted that the item in these minutes about Math for Business Decisions should mention that this text does include some statistics but that the authors do not appear to have consulted a statistician.

II.  Chair’s Report
Carolyn Cuff reported that the SIGMAA membership is 574 as of March 2003.

She also noted that MathFest will be held in Providence, Rhode Island August 12-14, 2004. 

Carolyn reminded us that our contributed paper session at this conference will be held from 8-10:55 am in Room 16 of the Civic Center Plaza, and that there was a panel discussion earlier this afternoon.

We will need to submit a topic for next year’s contributed paper session to MAA tomorrow (Friday).  Tom Moore (chair-elect) will be responsible for writing the description.  Any suggestions/comments should be directed to him.

III.  Treasurer’s Report
There was no treasurer’s report available because the MAA did not supply us with the necessary information.  A treasurer’s report will be posted on our website when it is available.

IV.  Regular Business
A. Results from the Fall Elections
Carolyn announced the results from the officer elections this fall, and she introduced the two new officers who will take over duties at the end of this meeting:

Chair-Elect: Tom Moore, Grinnell College and
Treasurer: Chris Lacke, Rowan University.

She re-introduced the continuing offices:

Past-Chair: Mary Sullivan, Rhode Island College
Chair: Carolyn Cuff, Westminster College, and
Secretary: Julie Clark, Hollins University.

Carolyn thanked Mary Sullivan and Bob Hollister for their service as past-chair and treasurer, respectively. 

 

V.  Old Business
A. Member Services

1)      Website
The SIGMAA StatEd website is found at http://www.pasles.com/sigmaastat/.  You can also access the website from the MAA page (www.maa.org) by selecting the link for the SIGMAAs.  The website is maintained by Paul C. Pasles.  Please let him know if there are links that he should add.

 

2)    Electronic Mailing List
Carolyn reminded us that most of our communication is done via email.  So, if your email address changes you need to let both Carolyn and the MAA know as soon as possible.  You could also notify Dex Whittinghill, (whittinghill@rowan.edu ) who remains helpful in maintaining our email list.

3)    Newsletter
We did not send out hard copies of a newsletter last year.  Carolyn sought feedback about whether it is sufficient to post an email notice that the newsletter has appeared on our website.  John McKenzie feels that a summary of our yearly activities in a newsletter is important but notes that hard copies are not necessary.  Pat Humphreys,  newsletter editor once again requests items for the newsletter.  Several folks then made suggestions about items that could appear in the newsletter.  They included:

v  Abstracts from papers presented at the Joint Meetings and Math Fest

v  Columns written by the officers

v  Text Book reviews

v  The “swap” items shared at the end of this meeting

   Please contact Pat at   phumphre@georgasouthern.edu with items.  (Note – this is a new email address for Pat.)  Murray Siegal suggested that Pat contact the Statistics Teachers Network – we may have items for them or vice versa.  Chris Lacke pointed out that there is (or will be) a new SIGMAA on Quantitative Literacy which may well overlap with our SIGMAA StatEd. 

VI.  New Business
1) A Nomination Committee – Nkechi Agwu sent the following document:  “These are the reasons why I think it would be preferable to separate the executive committee from the nominating committee:  1)  Two separate committees allow for members in the structural organization of our association including members who may not be executive members (past or present).  2) A nominating committee that is difference from the executive committee provides checks and balances for the appearance of any inappropriate practices in the selection of candidates or issues that may be construed as favoring the “old boy’s network.” “

A lively discussion of this and other items relating to altering the charter followed (should the chair be a two-year position, and should elections be required to be held earlier in the year).  John McKenzie pointed out that our SIGMAA has really grown (from an initial 100 members to almost 600) and so perhaps it is time for the officers to really scrutinize the charter and decide if it needs to be updated.  Several folks commented that we did not want to be continually changing the charter, and that only a small fraction of our membership was present at this meeting. So – it might be better to discuss these issues via email with the entire group.  It was noted that there is nothing in the current charter that would prevent the past chair from using a nominating committee or group of advisors in finding a slate of officers.  In addition – allowing folks to nominate themselves (as we currently do) might make a nominating committee redundant. 

It is important that the newly elected officers attend these Joint Meetings in January, and so it might be easier for such folks to obtain funding from their schools if we held elections earlier.  We decided to try to hold them earlier this year (but not to adjust the dates specified in the charter).  The officers will be continuing discussions of all these items via email over the coming months.

 

2) Carolyn said that CAUSE (the Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education) is seeking a SIGMAA StatEd member to help with their Digital Library.  Dennis Pearl, Ohio State is in charge of the project.  The group is trying to create a digital library that would, for example, supply information on Java applets – information about where they reside and how to use them.  CAUSE is meeting in Columbus Ohio in March, and it is expected that they would invite this volunteer to attend the meeting (at CAUSE’s expense.)  Four people volunteered and Carolyn has passed their names along to Dennis Pearl.  John McKenzie suggested that we might like to have someone from CAUSE give an overview of the Digital Library at next year’s business meeting.  Robin Lock pointed out that there will be many opportunities for many SIGMAA StatEd members to be involved with this project.

 

3) Announcements

·         The first US-COTS will be held in Columbus on May 19-21, 2005.  The program chair is Deb Rumsey of the Ohio State University.

·         ICOTS-7 (International Conference on Teaching Statistics) will be held July 2-9,2006 in Salvadore, Brazil.  Invited sessions will be planned during 2004, so folks wishing to organize sessions or offer ideas can begin to do so soon.  (Preliminary information can be found at:  http://www.maths.otago.ac.nz/icots7/layout.html .)

·         The ASA meetings are in Toronto this year.

·         ICME10 will be in Copenhagen, Denmark in July

·         Beyond the Formula is a conference for all teachers of introductory statistics – held annually in Rochester, NY – just before the Joint Statistics Meetings in Toronto.

·         There is a conference on Making Statistics More Effective for Schools of Business in Vancouver British Columbia on June.

·         A workshop on teaching an introductory post-calculus statistics course will be held in San Luis Obispo this coming June.  www.rossmanchance.com/iscat

·         Their will be a roundtable conference on assessment (sponsored by the Web ARTIST group) in Wisconsin August 1-4,  2004.  www.gen.umn.edu/artist/.

·         Gail Burrill announced that there will be a second NCTM Yearbook on Teaching Statistics and Probability.  Please submit papers.  The deadline is sometime in March.  You may reach Gail at burrill@msu.edu

 

The business meeting was closed, and the members participated in an interactive ‘swap’ session. Several participations brought copies of their favorite activity to share. 

Name and School/Affiliation of those attending the meeting:

 

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