As I write this (at the beginning of November), it is the twilight of my presidential year. It has been (and will continue to be) an exciting and awesome year. Tomorrow begins the People to People trip to Israel, where we have a fascinating professional itinerary, as well as a social one. We will visit university statistics departments in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the Israeli Census Bureau, a large pharmaceutical company, and a smaller consulting company. I am sure we will make professional connections that we will maintain throughout the coming years.
In December, I will visit Colombo, Sri Lanka, to give a plenary address at the Sri Lankan Statistical Association meeting. I also will give a talk at the University of Colombo, which maintains the only statistics department in Sri Lanka. I am looking forward to this opportunity to meet even more statisticians in a country I never imagined visiting. And I know this year I will not be having a white Christmas!
Here in the United States, I also have had the opportunity to speak to a number of chapters and attend several meetings. Last month, I attended the Fall Technical Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, and a career day at Grand Valley State University. The Fall Technical Conference was fascinating, in that the talks were in areas outside of my areas of expertise, reminding me that statistics is, indeed, an all-encompassing discipline and that you are never too senior to broaden your horizons. The career day gave me a wonderful opportunity to meet up-and-coming members of our profession. In October, I visited the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter. Everyone has been very welcoming and hospitable.
Aside from traveling, the biggest adventure of being ASA president is the talk at the Joint Statistical Meetings. I confess I spent a lot of time preparing this talk and relating it to the meeting theme and a lot of energy working up to the presentation. If you missed it, it will be published in the December issue of JASA.
Of the three initiatives I proposed for the year, two have been completed: the Public Awareness Initiative, the 2011 “Promoting the Practice and Profession of Statistics” video competition, and the Organizational Efficiency Initiative, which prepared guidance for the functioning of the Leadership Support Council (LSC) based on the first year’s experience. The LSC guidance will help future president-elects organize the many tasks they need to oversee.
The third initiative, an education initiative, succeeded in drafting a request for proposals for a Summer Institute in Statistics (SIS) for undergraduates. However, implementing this proposal requires fund raising and preparedness to administer such summer programs. I will continue to work with the committee in 2012 in the hopes that we see this project come to fruition.
Other accomplishments of the year include sending a letter to the UN Special Rapporteur about the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression concerning the prosecution of statisticians who express disagreement with the modest inflation statistics the government alleges. Several statistical organizations, including the International Statistics Institute, have sent letters in support of the ASA letter. This publicity has resulted in editorials supporting our views in both the Washington Post and The New York Times.
Reviewing the year brings to mind that the ASA recently suffered a great loss—the death of our education director, Martha Aliaga. An Argentine native, Martha was a huge contributor to the ASA. Both the 2011 education initiative and our action in Argentina were greatly influenced by her quiet touch.
In closing, I would like to thank the board of directors, the ASA staff, and all the active members for their help this year. Soon, I will (symbolically) pass the presidential gavel to Bob Rodriguez and I am sure he will do a great job! His presidential columns will begin next month, and I look forward to reading them. I wish you all happy holidays and a wonderful 2012.
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