SIGMAA Statistics Education Business Meeting and Reception

Tuesday, 1-7- 09

Held in Washington, D.C. from 5:45 pm to 7pm

 

Welcome, Introductions, and Reception  

            SIGMAA Chair Pat Humphrey welcomed everyone in attendance and introduced the officers:  Michael Posner, chair-elect, Dorothy Anway, treasurer, Nancy Boynton secretary and soon to be chair-elect, Cora Neal, soon to be secretary.    Everyone was invited to partake of the refreshments. Also, everyone in attendance was asked to introduce him or herself and sign the attendance sheet. 

 

Announcements

Carol Blumberg from the DOE-EIA spoke about the number of retirements that will be coming in the next few years in government agencies and the fact that they will be hiring employees at all levels.  They also have student internships.  For most positions you must be a citizen.

 

Approval of Minutes from Business Meeting of 1-7-08

            Copies of the 2008 meeting minutes were distributed.  A motion to approve the minutes was made by Dex Whittinghill and seconded by Murray Siegel.  The minutes were unanimously approved.

 

Treasurer’s Report 

            Dorothy Anway gave the treasurers report. 

	Actual 2007	Approved 2008	Actual for 3 quarters 2008	Requested 2010
Estimated  Revenues
Dues	2290.00	2600.00	1670.00	2600.00
Donations			200.00
Carryover from previous year	20350.00	21505.00	21505.00	19910.00
Total Revenue	22640.00	24105.00	23375.00	22510.00
Total Expenses	1135.00	4195.00	1432.00	4425.00
Balance	21505.00	19910.00		18085.00

 

• We have 448 paid members.
• There have been problems getting the membership list and getting the information that we would like from the MAA.  They expect that with some new software this will improve.

Dex Whittinghill Best Contributed Paper Award

Dex Whittinghill presented the 2008 Dex Whittinghill Best Contributed Paper Award plaque and honorarium to Cora Neal for her presentation, “Using Humming to Teach Experimental Design in Elementary Statistics."  There was a tie for the 2008 Best Contributed Paper.  Rodney Sturdivant also won for his presentation, “ Anthrax, Killer Bees and Murder to Motivate Statistics.”  Unfortunately Rodney was unable to be at the Business Meeting.  He will be given his plaque and honorarium at another time.

 

Pat Humphrey (current chair)

There has been a request for support from ICOTS 2010.  There was a discussion of whether we should do this.  We concluded that we need to get more information about what they are asking for.  It was determined that we should only do it if it would directly benefit our members. 

 

We have been asked by the MAA to make changes in our charter so that it is in line with their model charter.  There was a motion from Dorothy Anway, seconded by Murray Siegel to have the officers of the SIGMAA go through these charter changes and make them as long as the officers think that they are appropriate for the SIGMAA.  Dex Whittinghill made a friendly amendment to have the changes sent out by e-mail for comments from the members.  The motion with the amendment was approved

 

Our charter requires that we have at least two candidates for each office.  It is often difficult to find enough people willing to run and so there was a motion to change our charter to allow us to run one candidate and a write-in slot.  Several people spoke about the advantages of having two candidates.  We need to get more people involved and find ways to draw in young faculty.  This is difficult at a time when many colleges and universities are cutting back on travel budgets.  Many organizations are having similar problems getting enough people to serve in volunteer positions.  It was unanimously decided to continue to require two candidates for each position.

 

The SIGMAA is making plans for JMM 2010 in San Francisco.  We submitted two Contributed Paper Session proposals.  One was Improving a Second Course in Statistics which has now been approved.  We will be proposing a panel on What a New Statistics Teacher Should Know and perhaps a second panel. 

 

Mary Sullivan and Mary Parker are on an American Statistical Association subcommittee on teaching statistics in two-year colleges.  They want the SIGMAA to remember that there are many two-year college faculty members in the MAA and some of them need help teaching statistics.  You can contact them at mmsullivan@ric.edu  or  mparker@austincc.edu.  

 

We need a new webmaster and a new newsletter editor.  Michael Posner has obtained for us the domain name sigmaastated.org.  Now we need someone to update the site.

 

They are looking for more AP Readers.  If you are interested Chris Franklin of the University of Georgia is the Chief Reader, chris@stat.uga.edu, or the AP website at http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/Controller.jpf 

 

Robin Locke announced the meeting of the Joint ASA-MAA Committee meeting on Thursday morning. 

 

This year we will give a prize for the 2009 JMM Student Poster Award for Excellence in Statistics.  Pat announced that we were looking for people to serve as judges.  

 

Thank you to the following exhibitors who donated door prizes:

 

• ASA
• Casio
• Key Curriculum Press
• MAA
• Minitab
• SAS/JMP
• Texas Instruments
• W. H. Freeman

 

Prizes were won by –

Carolyn Cuff, Bob Jernigan, Debby Lurie, Dorothy Anway, Murray Siegel, Sue Barton, Allan Anway and Joe Urbanski

 

John McKenzie asked that the officers leaving their positions be thanked.

 

Meeting was adjourned at 7:10 pm.

 

2009 SIGMAA on Statistics Education Business Meeting Attendees

Name	Institution	e-mail
An, Ming	Vassar College	mian@vassar.edu
Anway, Dorothy	U of Wisconsin-Superior	danway@uwsuper.edu
Blumberg, Carol Joyce	Energy Info Admin	carol.blumberg@eia.doe.gov
Boynton, Nancy	SUNY Fredonia	boynton@fredonia.edu
Cohen, Michael P	NORC & GMU	mcohenc@gmu.edu
Crawford, Sara	Valparaiso Univ	Sara.Crawford@valpo.edu
Cuff, Carolyn	Westminster College	ccuff@westminster.edu
Dinov, Ivo	UCLA	dinov@stat.ucla.edu
Gill, Brian	Seattle Pacific U	bgill@spu.edu
Hancock, Stacey	Reed College	staceyallayne@gmail.com
Humphrey, Pat	Georgia Southern Univ	phumphre@georgiasouthern.edu
Jernigan, Bob	American U	jernigan@american.edu
Leigh Lunsford	Longwood Univ	lunsfordml@longwood.edu
Lock, Robin	St. Lawrence Univ	rlock@stlawu.edu
Lurie, Debby	Saint Joseph Univ	lurie@sju.edu
McKenzie, John	Babson College	mckenzie@babson.edu
Neal, Cora	Sonoma State	cora.neal@sonoma.edu
Norton, Doug	Villanova University	douglas.norton@villanova.edu
Parker, Mary	Austin CC	mparker@austincc.edu
Poplin, Phillip L	Longwood Univ	poplinpl@longwood.edu
Posner, Michael	Villanova University	michael.posner@villanova.edu
Sethi, Wendiann	SHU	sethiwen@shu.edu
Siegel, Murray	Central AZ	murray.siegel@centralaz.edu
Sullivan, Mary M	Rhode Island College	mmsullivan@ric.edu
Urbanski, Joe	West Virginia Univ	jurbanski@wvu.edu
Whittinghill, Dex	Rowan Univ	whittinghill@rowan.edu

 

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