Wendy Martinez

Imagine a world that relies on data and statistical thinking to drive discovery and inform decisions. That’s the vision of the American Statistical Association. One of the benefits of serving as ASA president is the opportunity to establish initiatives for our association within the context of our vision and mission to “promote the practice and profession of statistics.”

In this month’s column, I will share the 2020 ASA initiatives and invite you to be involved in working toward our strategic themes through these initiatives.

The following three themes are in our strategic plan:

• Enhancing the Diversity and Breadth of Our Association
• Increasing the Visibility of Our Profession
• Ensuring the Future of Our Profession

The three 2020 initiatives build on the efforts of past ASA initiatives and, with your help, will continue our forward progress.

The first effort continues our work on diversity and inclusion. Past initiatives have focused on groups such as Asians, African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. In 2020, we will work on LGBTQ+ inclusion in our profession, which addresses the theme Enhancing the Diversity and Breadth of Our Association.

At WSDS 2018, Suzanne Thornton, Emma Benn, Brittany Green, and I hosted a panel session titled “Preparing for Increased Gender Diversity and Inclusion in Statistics and Data Science: Important Perspectives from Gender Non-Conforming and LGBTQ+ Scholars.” The result of this panel was enthusiastic support and a call for more similar events.

To reach a wider audience, Suzanne, Emma, Brittany, and I collaborated with Jack Miller, Miles Ott, and Donna LaLonde to publish two articles for the June 2019 edition of Significance magazine. The printed article is titled “Friends and Allies: LGBT+ Inclusion in Statistics and Data Science,” and the accompanying online reference is titled “LGBT+ Resources for Statisticians and Data Scientists.” After hosting a town hall at JSM 2019, we realized the interest in the work we were doing was large and found a group of more than 30 individual ASA members who wanted to participate.

Some projects are already in the works, such as revitalizing the ASA LGBTQ+ Advocacy Committee, developing ally training, creating opportunities for leadership and professional development through short courses or scholarships, and developing an online presence. Look for more about this initiative in my June (Pride Month!) Amstat News column.

Our second 2020 initiative is K–6 Statistics and Data Science and tackles the theme Ensuring the Future of Our Profession. Our community has had a strong commitment to K–12 education through the years, which has been supported by presidential initiatives. For instance, we support teaching and learning through programs such as Meeting Within a Meeting at JSM, What’s Going on in This Graph?, the online journal Statistics Teacher, and data challenges. We even have a K–12 Statistical Ambassador, Christine Franklin, who guides the creation of professional development materials for teacher educators and teachers, conducts workshops, engages in outreach to the STEM educational community, and much more.

The Common Core State Mathematics Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, in conjunction with the global focus on data science, make these existing efforts essential. However, current efforts focus on middle- and high-school students, and now—in the spirit of Robert Fulghum’s All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten—the 2020 initiative will focus on K–6.

We are happy to announce that 2017 ASA President Barry Nussbaum has agreed to lead this effort. Some projects have already been proposed. One I am excited about is the development of games and apps to encourage children to develop data literacy skills, learn about coding, and cultivate logical thinking. What better way for kids to become familiar with statistics and data analysis than to do so while having fun?

Another project focuses on early middle-school students but could be expanded in the future to include elementary students. This consists of two interview experiences with the overarching goal of developing and encouraging middle-school students’ interest in statistics and data science and for those of us already in the profession to learn from them.

The first interview experience will be conducted by three middle-school students representing various regions of the United States: East, Midwest, and West. We will work with the ASA chapters to organize regional competitions that will help us select students for the interviews. These students will interview the three ASA presidents and vice presidents on the 2020 ASA Board. We hope to have this interview distributed in April 2020 in celebration of Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month.

The second interview will be conducted by me. I will discuss ideas in data science and statistics with three to five late elementary or early middle-school students who are homeschooled. The goal is to gain understanding of how these students view statistics and data science and build relationships with the homeschool community. Who knows? Maybe this can be expanded to get a broader survey of students in these age groups.

Other efforts in this area will focus on building new collaborations with education-focused organizations such as the Concord Consortium and American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Human Rights Coalition.

The theme for JSM 2020 is “Everyone Counts: Data for the Public Good.” The AAAS is interested in involving students more in the work of the coalition, and this would be a great opportunity to extend the JSM data for good theme by providing activities that engage students in using statistics to improve our world.

Many of you have probably seen or heard of TED talks. These are relatively short talks on topics of general interest, and they can be influential. At least, they have been influential in my life, as they often bring new perspectives and motivate change. TED’s mission is to support “ideas worth spreading,” and TEDx events provide the opportunity to showcase these ideas and individual contributors. Our third initiative for 2020 is to host a TEDx event. This, of course, pertains to our strategic theme Increasing the Visibility of our Profession. This initiative continues the important work of 2019 ASA President Karen Kafadar’s Impact Initiative and will showcase statistical “ideas worth spreading.” The purpose of the event will be to show the public how statistical thinking drives discovery, informs decisions, and makes an impact. Tom Fisher and Eric Laber are leading this task, and the goal is to hold the TEDx event at North Carolina State University in October 2020.

Donna LaLonde, ASA director of strategic initiatives and outreach, has provided me her unwavering support and content for this column. We are looking for your support, too! An online form has been established for you to fill out if you would like to volunteer to help with any of these initiatives. Let us know your ideas.