Statistics Without Borders (SWB), the ASA all-volunteer group, will provide pro-bono instructors for the Pyongyang Summer Institute (PSI) in Survey Science and Quantitative Methodology in North Korea this summer. The PSI is an intensive, international teaching program at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), the first and only private and international university, which was launched in North Korea in the fall of 2010.

PSI is the first program of its kind in North Korea, which has now approved visas for 15 visiting faculty. PSI students are expected to be upper-level undergraduates and graduate students whose academic credentials are comparable to those students in Ivy plus schools.

The summer institute is jointly administered by the International Strategy and Reconciliation Foundation (ISRF), PUST, and SWB. The ISRF is a nonprofit organization recognized by the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments for its humanitarian and educational programs in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The PSI will begin as a three-year pilot program that will take place from July 2012 to July 2014.

For four weeks, SWB members will provide both fundamental and advanced courses in sampling, statistics, survey methods, census methods, questionnaire design, and computer-assisted data collection and analysis. The courses were modeled after those of the 65-year-old Michigan Summer Institute, a renowned international survey training program.