Don Edwards, President
Department of Statistics
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
Klaus Hinkelmann, Vice-President
Department of Statistics
VPI and SU
Blacksburg, VA 24061
W. Robert Stephenson, Past President
327 Snedecor Hall
Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50011
John Wasik, Secretary/Treasurer
Department of Statistics
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695
Bill Warde, Director-at-Large
Statistics Department
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, OK 74074
Carol Lancaster, Director-at-Large
Department of Educational Services
Medical University of South Carolina
Charleston, SC 29425
Carol Lancaster, Editor
M. Adams, AL alpha
D. Boes, CO alpha
W.R. Stephenson, IA alpha
G. Milliken, KS alpha
LA alpha
C. McCulloch, NY alpha
D. Dickey, NC alpha
V. Rohatgi, OH alpha
W. Warde, OK alpha
Y. Palesch, SC alpha
D. Edwards, SC beta
E. Eltinge, TX alpha
R. Canfield, UT alpha
J.L. Madrigal, UT beta
L. Haugh, VT alpha
J. Birch, VA alpha
G. Hobbs, WV alpha
R. Cochran, WY alpha
and a hearty welcome to our first chapter in Florida at the University of Florida at Gainesville with faculty correspondent Dennis Wackerly!
Oklahoma State University - Oklahoma Alpha Chapter
Oklahoma Alpha has selected four new members and will be holding its initiation in the fall. A fall initiation will allow that chapter to have additional active members during the academic year. New members are Wen Chen (Lucy) Burns, Carrie M. Duvall, Chansoo Kim, and Scott J. Richter. All four are graduate students.
The Alpha Mu Sigma Rho effectively runs as a constituent part of the Stat Club at OSU. The stat club held a Fall picnic and orchestrated a Christmas Party. The club also (informally) competes in several intramural sports activities. Athletic efforts include fielding a coed softball team in the Spring semester, and a flag football team in the Fall.
OSU has sponsored a number of summer programs. Dr. Bill Warde has been involved as a faculty member teaching Statistics in two of these programs. Dr. Warde is the Principal Investigator for a NASA sponsored summer academy for junior high school students (grades 8 and 9) who are Native Americans. Summer 1996 will be the second year for this program. If anyone knows of a student who qualifies (currently 8th or 9th grade AND documentably Native American) have them get in touch for more information. The one month (June) residential program includes Math, Biology and Chemistry in addition to Statistics.
The second program, offered in July, is restricted to residents of the State of Oklahoma and sponsored by Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. The prospective students are also junior high age but may be Black, Hispanic, Native American or Oriental.
There is news about three recent graduates from the Master's program. One is working for the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care, one for StatSoft, and the third is teaching at Tulsa Junior College.
Our Mu Sigma Rho Chapter participated in the "MUSC Gives Back" student volunteer program. The members sponsored a group of children from a runaway shelter whom they escorted to the annual University Christmas tree lighting ceremony.
We organized a career seminar series which began in January, 1996. Faculty and guests will be speaking to students about topics relevant to careers in biometry and epidemiology.
We are sponsoring a Department Biometry Bowl to be held in late February, 1996. Teams of students will compete against each other by answering statistical and epidemiological questions in a competitive atmosphere.
The '94 - '96 officers for the SC Alpha Chapter of Mu Sigma Rho are: President, Donna Daniel; Vice President, Vicki Benard; and Secretary/Treasurer, Daniel Kajdasz. The faculty advisor is Dr. Yuko Palesch. The Chapter currently has 10 active members.
At the beginning of the academic year, new officers were elected. They are Elizabeth Nagel, president; Guy Foutz, vice president; and Brett Ogden, secretary. The faculty advisor is Dr. J.L. Madrigal.
In this year the following undergraduates were initiated: William Brinton, Cameron Copa, Matt Cox, Rachelle Curtis, David Dahl, Mike George, Bradley Gipson, Loftin Graham, Todd Graham, Bryce Harbertson, Michelle Jolley, John Knorrp, Elizabeth Nagel, Jason Nelson, Todd Nelson, Mark Pingree, Robert Pope, Robyn Prescott, Valori Shellman, Stephanie Stanworth, and Mark Wheelwright. Also, the following graduate students were recognized for their academic achievements in statistics: Gary Ottosen, Sahar Qumisyeh, Xiao Xiaoying. All of these students were recognized at our Mu Sigma Rho Initiation Banquet held in November, 1995.
William Christiansen, Brad McEwan, and Shane Reese, all Master of Science students, presented papers at the annual meeting of the American Statistical Association in Orlando, Florida.
The Mu Sigma Rho lecture was delivered by Dr. Leland J. Hendrix who was honored for his achievements in teaching and statistics.
In Fall Semester, 1995, Mu Sigma Rho sponsored a seminar about biostatistics. Drs. John Lawson and Bruce Schaalje were our faculty speakers.
Several recent graduates have been hired at Taylor Management, Excel Scientific Protocols, CS First Boston, Peat Marwick, Baan USA, Micron, Able Corporation, Watson-Wyatt, LifeUSA, AT & T, American Management Systems, Siar Bossard, Bear Sterns, Mayo Clinic, Advanced Micro Devices, and Orgenon Pharmaceuticals. The salary range was $26K to $48K.
Two graduates, William Christiansen and C. Shane Reese, have started their Ph.D. studies at Iowa State and Texas A&M, respectively.
We have distributed our leaflet to employers looking for statisticians. The leaflet is used to explain the advantages of hiring members of the statistical honor society.
At the beginning of the semester, we sponsored a potluck dinner to help the statistics department get acquainted. We also hosted a Christmas party. In addition to social events, we have had the opportunity to sponsor a service project. Several students volunteered their time to tutor a disabled student.
Our chapter continues to sponsor LARC, a program written in the department which ranks items based on pairwise comparisons. Each week Mu Sigma Rho members would enter college football scores into LARC and print a weekly Top 100 listing. In addition to being displayed in the Math and Computer Building, the Top 100 list has now been posted on the World Wide Web at http://aavpcomp.byu.edu/larc.html.
The programs in statistics available at The University of Vermont include Master's degrees in Statistics and Biostatistics as well as a BS major and a BA concentration.
In Spring, 1995, five students were initiated into Mu Sigma Rho. They were Mahmoud Al-Ostath, a Biostatistics graduate student from Kuwait who has now returned to Kuwait; Franz Bayog, an Economics senior minoring in Statistics; Xianjiao Jiang, a Biostatistics graduate student from China who is working on a PhD in Boston; Shelly Naud, a Statistics graduate student from New Hampshire who is working on a PhD in Michigan; and Jeffrey Preble, a Biostatistics graduate student from New York who has a position in Rhode Island. These students were initiated in an inaugural Department of Mathematics and Statistics honors ceremony. They are also recognized at the College of Engineering and Mathematics Honors Day ceremony.
Shelly Naud planned a trip for students desiring to attend the New England Statistics Symposium at the University of Connecticut.
Other social gatherings occurred through the leadership of Jeffrey Preble and other students active in the Statistics Student Association. An intramural volleyball team was formed in the Fall with little success, however, in the "win" column. Also, the students helped raise funds for the Chittenden County Committee on Temporary Shelter Walk-a-thon to benefit the homeless in our area.
Virginia Tech awarded 16 BS degrees in 1995. Some of the employers of these students are SAIC, Engineering Management and Econmics Corp, and Boeing Computer Services. Four students have elected to continue their schooling at Virginia (3) and the University of Chicago.
Twelve students were awarded Master's degrees in 1995 with students going to work for companies like Trilogy Consulting and Capital One. Of the nine students awarded PhD degrees, they opted to go with institutions such as Eli Lilly, Du Pont, Virginia Tech, and University of Delaware.
The officers for 1995-1996 are Lisa M. Chiacchierini, president; Jeffrey D. Vest, vice president; and Gregory S. Steeno, secretary-treasurer.
The two chapter-sponsored colloquia were presented by Dr. Walter Piegorsch from the University of South Carolina who spoke on Assessing Impacts of Environmental Stimuli Via Animal and Microbial Laboratory Studies" and Dr. Douglas Montgomery from Arizona State University who addressed the group on "A Systematic Approach to Planning for a Designed Industrial Experiment."
Our chapter, in an attempt to promote success in statistics among students in all fields, organized a list of tutors to assist students with their course work. The list was distributed to all faculty and graduate students teaching statistics courses with plans to compile an updated list each fall.
The new undergraduate initiates are Joseph Arthur Burcham, Sophia Chou, Elizabeth Johnson, Julia Marie Utter, Michelle L. Volpato, Seth R. Wyatt, and Vicki Leigh Zerfoss. New graduate members of Mu Sigma Rho are Jennifer Wade Huffman, Christopher S. Hughes, Angela Neff, Susan P. Raught, Stephanie A. Saxby, Jennifer L. Workinger, and Charles J. Wright, II. Dr. Douglas C. Montgomery was made an honorary member.
First and foremost, we welcome the addition of the new Florida chapter of Mu Sigma Rho, based in Gainesville. A charter will be presented this April, and the first group of members inducted under the supervision of Dennis Wackerly. Without question a chapter based at the outstanding program of the University of Florida is a credit to our society.
Mu Sigma Rho is on the Internet, dudes! We have a home page:
http://www.stat.sc.edu/msrnatl.html
The page(s) feature information on how to become a member, how to form a chapter or affiliate chapter, existing chapter rep addresses, national officers , and the upcoming College Bowl in Chicago. Past and present issues of the Mu Sigma Rhover are on line. The national constitution and bylaws are also there, as revised by changes made last year and under Bob Stephenson's presidency. PLEASE take a moment to look over the information on the page and send me comments. We especially need to make sure that the Chapter representative information is up to date, and we need email addresses for many of the chapter reps. Also, if your local chapter has a home page, send me the URL and we'll put in a link. We are hopeful that the national home page can serve as the means of central communication for the organization in the future. For example, next year's Rhover may be published exclusively on line, to save postage costs (and trees).
Mu Sigma Rho has always had fairly strict admission requirements for new chapters, which have the effect of restricting the formation of new chapters to universities and colleges with at least moderate-sized Statistics programs. The founders designed the constitution this way as a means of protecting the integrity of the organization, but one unwanted side effect of these policies has been to make it difficult for outstanding undergraduates at liberal arts colleges to join Mu Sigma Rho, since new members must be inducted into a chapter. One way around this problem is for several colleges to form a joint chapter, which has been allowed for several years now. In addition, the council and chapters last year approved changes to the constitution which allow the creation of "affiliate" Mu Sigma Rho chapters as satellites of ASA chapters. These affiliate chapters will have the capability to induct regular members of Mu Sigma Rho. For all the details on how to create a new chapter or affiliate chapter under the new policy, visait the home page. Pending approval of the council, a mailing will be made soon to the ASA chapters to advertise the new affiliate chapter registration procedures.
The Mu Sigma Rho College Bowl is on for the JSM in Chicago, co-sponsored by the ASA Section on Statistical Education, and taking shape quite nicely! We have prime-time slots approved on Tuesday morning August 6 for the rounds of 8 and 4 teams, and on Wednesday morning August 7 for the semifinals and championship, which will be moderated by Bob Hogg. Doris Moss at ASA has been a huge help, entirely free: the first advertisement appeared in the January AmStat News (inside the cover), and the second in the February AmStat News (p. 7). Doris will soon send a flyer to all Department heads.
To learn more about the Bowl, access the College Bowl home page, which you can get to through the national Mu Sigma Rho page address above. The College Bowl page gives the history of the bowl, the rules of the competition, and sample questions with answers. To register a team, there are no forms to fill out or fees to pay - we ask only that you take the registration seriously, as a commitment to field a team, and that each team (perhaps through department faculty) submit 10-20 good questions. Email me to register your team, or if you want to help with some aspect of the bowl. Email Bill Warde (billw@Okway.okstate.edu) if you want to submit questions, or send these to him directly at: Dept. of Statistics, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078.
Better hurry to get your team registered; the first round "byes" will be awarded by time order of team commitments. Several teams are already committed! Our goal (and limit) is "16 teams in '96".
Presidentially yours,
Don Edwards
Dept. of Statistics
U. of South Carolina
edwards@stat.sc.edu
Last modified October 23, 1997