Donna LaLonde and Anna Nevius

Some team representatives stop for a picture with a few of the ASA Board members during the inaugural leadership challenge. From left: Khuzaima Hameed, Lin Dong, Eric Rose, Yeng Saanchi, Anna Nevius, Keltin Grimes, Evidence Matangi, Hannah Weeks, Barry Nussbaum, Lisa LaVange, and Donna LaLonde

Develop and present a business plan outlining strategies for recruitment and retention of students and early-career members of the American Statistical Association. This formidable challenge was presented to teams participating in the inaugural Leadership Institute Challenge. Teams from North Carolina State University, Purdue University, and Vanderbilt took up the challenge and worked for nine months to develop business plans for how the ASA should approach this strategic and important goal.

The members of the North Carolina State University team—Lin Dong, Eric Rose, Yeng Saanchi, Khuzaima Hameed, and Keltin Grimes—worked together as members of Eric Laber’s group. Dong, Rose, Saanchi, and Hameed are PhD students, while Grimes is an Enola High School student who does research with the group. They were coached by Wendy Lou, the PhD program director and biostatistics division head in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

Will A. Eagan, who is a PhD candidate in the department of statistics, served as the team leader for the Purdue University team. His teammates were Evidence Matangi, a PhD candidate; Tyler Netherly, an undergraduate student; Hui (Sophie) Sun, a PhD candidate; and Margaret (Maggie) Christy, a graduate student in the department of biostatistics at Indiana University and Purdue University alumna. They were all current or former members of the Purdue ASA Student Chapter and coached by 2017 ASA President Barry Nusbaum.

The Vanderbilt University team was led by Hannah Weeks, who is a PhD candidate in the department of biostatistics. Her teammates were Elizabeth Sigworth and Sarah Lotspeich, also PhD candidates in the department of biostatistics, and Vanderbilt alumnae Allison Hainline of GlaxoSmithKline and Lucy D’Agostino McGowan, a postdoctoral fellow at The Johns Hopkins University. They were coached by Lisa Lupinacci, associate vice president for late development statistics at Merck & Co., Inc.

The informal kickoff for the challenge occurred at the end of the JSM 2018 Workshop for Student Chapters, when members of the Vanderbilt and Purdue teams had an opportunity to meet with their coaches. Formally, the challenge began when the expectations for the business plan and schedule for the academic year were shared with the teams.

As the teams began working on their business plans—which required an executive summary, SWOT analysis, strategies, and budget—they were supported by their coaches. Anna Nevius of the FDA and Donna LaLonde of the ASA were also available to answer questions and identify resources. Amy Farris, ASA director of marketing and membership development, described current and past membership activities via a video interview and provided current membership data. We were all working toward the culminating experience of presenting plans to the ASA Board.

We met with the teams via Zoom video conference and created a shared Google drive, which contributed to a collaborative experience. Since the mission of the Leadership Institute is to support the development of leaders at all stages of a career trajectory, we also met in virtual meet-ups to explore leadership topics. The first meet-up included a presentation by Lupinacci on success factors in the early-career setting. Bill Sollecito, a clinical professor in the Public Health Leadership Program at The University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, shared insights on developing vision statements. We concluded the meet-up series with a conversation with 2018 ASA President Lisa LaVange and Nussbaum, who talked about their paths to leadership in the ASA.

The ASA Board used a scoring rubric with the categories content, delivery, response to questions, and overall impressions. Each board member rated the presentation in each of these categories using a scale of 1 (very weak) to 5 (great). It was the consensus of the board that all the teams identified strategies that should be considered, so they were all declared winners.

Ideas that emerged from the presentations and subsequent discussions demonstrated the teams’ thoughtful and innovative approaches to the challenge. For example, the Purdue team suggested a focus on corporate departmental membership. This was their strategy for maintaining those members who are no longer students and now work in industry. The team suggested the competitive advantage is that now ASA membership becomes part of serving as a statistician for a company.

The concept of “prospecting in your own backyard” was explored by the Vanderbilt team. This strategy draws the distinction between prospecting in external groups that are potentially too broad (such as entire universities) and targeted recruiting at meetings. The Vanderbilt team encouraged the ASA to make everyone a “membership expert,” so recruiting of new members was truly an association effort.

Complementing these recommendations, the NC State team focused on engagement. They proposed annual information sessions at participating universities for current and incoming students hosted by a local ASA member (or chapter) who would advocate for the benefits of membership. Their plan also suggested online engagement as key to maintaining membership. The team suggested the ASA host discussions on platforms such as Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, which would allow members and nonmembers to interact.

The next leadership challenge will be launched at the end of August.

To learn more about the challenge, join us at the JSM student chapter workshop, Monday, July 29, from 10:30 a.m. to noon in the Hyatt Regency Capitol Ballroom 1 or participate in a virtual information meet-up.

Complete the form if you would like to receive email updates about the challenge and the time and date for the virtual meet-up.