SIGMAA on Statistics Education

Minutes of the 2005 SIGMAA meeting at the Joint Mathematics Meetings
Thursday, January 6, 2005, 5:45 - 7:15 pm
Atlanta, Georgia

 

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

 

Welcome
John McKenzie, chair, welcomed everyone and opened the meeting by having everyone introduce themselves. 

 

Reception
After the welcome and introductions, there was a short break of about 15 minutes for a reception.

 

I.    Approval of Minutes
The minutes from the January 8, 2004 meeting were approved. These minutes are located on the SIGMAA website at http://www.pasles.org/sigmaastat/minutes2004.doc. 

 

II.  Chair’s Report
 John McKenzie reported that he was requested by CAUSE to help with an NSF grant. He also recently filed the 2003 annual report for the SIGMAA and this will soon be available on the SIGMAA website. He submitted a proposal for a contributed paper session in San Antonio that will be about implementing good statistical practices in introductory statistics classes that follow the guidelines established in the GAISE report.

 

III. Chair-Elect’s Report

Tom Moore announced the second set of contributed papers on Friday, solicited ideas for new contributed paper sessions for future meetings, requested an idea for a panel discussion, solicited ideas for an activity during our meeting for next year,

and announced the San Antonio meeting next year.

 

IV. Past Chair’s Report

Carolyn Cuff, the past chair, introduced the newly elected chair-elect, Ginger Holmes Rowell and the newly elected secretary, Sue Schou. 

 

V. Treasurer’s Report

Chris Lacke presented the 2005 budget. He also discussed the current lack of information about exact spending. The question about why money was budgeted for MathFest was raised by Nkechi Agwu. The response was that the budget included potential expenditures for MathFest because on occasion the SIGMAA had participated.

 

 

VI. Old Business

A. Communication:  The chair discussed that email is used for most communication but the SIGMAA will be doing a postcard  to remind the members about SIGMAA activities and will include a tickler to remind members about due dates (for example, contributed papers). The chair said that information delivery would be implemented in a push-pull fashion. Members would be expected to pull off things from the SIGMAA website;

however, the SIGMAA would do a push by sending information via U. S. mail (newsletter) and by email. Carolyn Cuff suggested that participants go to the combined membership list to ensure their email address is correct. A potential problem with combined member list was discussed but that problem should now be corrected.  The postcard will remind members to check their email address for correctness.

 

B. Charter  This is the second oldest SIGMAA and its charter was accepted by the MAA at its inception. Since the charter was approved, the budget date was moved due to MAA requirements. MAA suggests that the charter of all SIGMAAs be standardized. The organization may wish to make other changes; example, having a SIGMAA representative. A committee to change the charter has been formed. John Mackenzie will chair the committee and the committee will include Sue Schou and Pat Humphrey.

 

Nkechi Agwu suggested that the committee have a lay member and offered to be that member if no other lay member could be found. She also suggested that a change in the charter should include an independent nominating committee rather than the current manner in which it is constructed. The chair agreed and said that he would be taking email suggestions as well.

 

Steve Carlson took the floor and suggested that Dan Teague be the lay person included on the charter committee. He included discussion of Dan Teague’s experience and expertise. Robin Lock suggested letting people volunteer for the committee and include as many as possible unless there were too many who volunteered. The chair discussed briefly the difficulties with working with too large a committee.

 

VII. New Business

A. Web Page Editor: The chair discussed the SIGMAA website and the question was raised about how it could be improved. The chair made a request for volunteers to edit the website.  

 

B. Awards:  Suggestions were made for possible awards such as best paper award or other awards for contributed papers at JMM. The suggestions included giving a plaque and free registration for next year’s JMM; perhaps give awards at different levels; for example, student/tenured/untenured, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

C. Announcements:

 

 Additional meetings  from www.amstat.org/dateline:

            IASES Satellite Conference on Stat Ed and the communication

            USCOTS

            Beyond the Formula IX

            2005 Joint Statistical Meetings

            ICOTS-7

 

Other organizations that may have meetings of interest to SIGMAA members:

             NCTM .org

            AMATYC

            INFORMS

            Decision Sciences

 

There will be a meeting of the MAA/ASA Joint Committee on Undergraduate  Statistics     on Saturday at 8am in the Bordeaux room at the Marriott Hotel.

 

Ginger Holmes Rowell announced that CAUSEweb, the statistics education digital

library, is accepting submissions for both peer reviewed teaching materials including data sets and activities, as well as statistics education materials that already exist on the web. For peer reviewed materials, submit via the web at submit@causeweb.org. Contact Ginger directly (rowell@mtsu.edu) if you have materials already on the web that you would like cataloged in CAUSEweb.

 

VIII. GAISE activity

Members participated in a group activity that was based on the GAISE report. All participants received a pen from Mintab as a prize. Groups with the best score and highest approval rating from the audience received a second prize from various sponsors.

 

IX. Meeting Adjourned

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:15pm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abramowitz, Sarah

Drew University

Agwu, Nkechi

BMCC/CUNY

Anway, Dorothy

University of Wisconsin - Superior

Boynton, Nancy

SUNY Fredonia

Burrill, Gail

Michigan State University

Carlson, Steve

Rose-Hulman

Chihara, Laura

Carleton College

Cohen, Michael P.

Bureau of Transportation Statistics

Cuff, Carolyn

Westminster College

Ebanks, Annalisa

EMCC /Mississippi State University

Finzer, Bill

KCP Technologies

Fitchett, Steph

Florida Atlantic University

Fowler, Gary

US Naval Academy

Freed, Ben

Clarion University

Holda, Julie

Ohio Northern University

Horton, Nick

Smith College

Humphrey, Pat

Georgia Southern University

Hunt,Jr., William F.

North Carolina State University

Inniss, Tasha R.

Spelman College

Jones, Albyn

Reed College

Kern, Dennis

Texas A&M Texarkana

Kilic-Bahi, Semra

Colby-Sawyer College

Lacke, Chris

Rowan University

Lewis, Kara

Ohio Northern University

Lock, Robin

St Lawrence University

Lunsford, M. Leigh

Longwood University

McKenzie, John

Babson College

Moore, Tom

Grinnell College

Payne, David

Monmouth University

Peterson, Bill

Middleburg College

Reese, Margaret

Virginia Wesleyan College

Rothan, Adele M.

College of St. Catherine

Rowell, Ginger Holmes

Middle Tennessee State University

Schield, Milo

Augsburg College

Schou, Sue

Idaho State University

Siegel, Murray

GSSM

Siegrist, Kyle

University of Alabama Huntsville

Sullivan, Mary M.

Rhode Island College

Teague, Dan

N C School of Science & Math

Timothy, Brent

BYU-Idaho

Verzani, John

CUNY/CSI

Walsh, Dennis

Middle Tennessee State University

Warren, Bette

Eastern Michigan University

 

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