John Dixon, 2010 GSS Chair
The accomplishments of GSS over the past year are due to the work of an excellent executive committee. The Joint Statistical Meetings had the most member participation, thanks to an excellent program by Lisa Blumerman and Iris Shimizu. We also had a successful poster competition with one winner and two honorable mentions and succeeded in having six sold-out roundtable discussions. Participants seem to have enjoyed the choice of subjects and the discussion with the roundtable leaders.
We are a permanent sponsor for the International Conference on Establishment Surveys (ICES). This successful event takes place every three or four years and explores the current state of the art in survey methodology for business, institutional, and agricultural surveys. The next conference (ICES IV) will take place in Montréal in June 2012.
GSS is also a sponsor of the International Conference on Methods for Surveying and Enumerating Hard-to-Reach Populations, which will take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, from October 31 to November 3, 2012. Because the section’s finances are in good health, we are able to provide these initiatives as a service to our members.
Our membership declined slightly over the year, particularly as free memberships expired. This was typical of most sections, but I hope all current GSS members continue to encourage other statisticians to join. Also, you are welcome to submit articles for our monthly newsletter by contacting Natalya Verbitsky-Savitz, GSS newsletter editor, at NVSavitz@mathematica-mpr.com. Articles about GSS can be read regularly in Amstat News, including summaries of COPAFS meetings.
GSS took over the management of the Jeanne E. Griffith Mentoring Award, which encourages mentoring of junior government staff with respect to statistics. Stephanie Shipp and Beth Kilss did an excellent job of setting up the procedures for managing the award, including the publicity; solicitation of nominations; selection of recipients; and fundraising to cover the annual honoraria, reception, and awards.
GSS also sponsors or cosponsors the Pat Doyle Award, Roger Herriot Award, Wray Jackson Smith Scholarship, and student paper and poster competitions at JSM. I want to encourage members to submit names as potential recipients for these awards. There is a monetary contribution that accompanies most. Details can be found on the GSS website.
Finally, I want to thank all my colleagues on the executive committee and all contributors to section activities who made 2010 a successful year. I especially want to thank the three members who are leaving the executive committee—Blumerman, Steve Cohen, and Lester Curtin—for their contributions over the years.
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