SIGMAA Stat Ed Meeting and Reception
Saturday, 1-6-07
Held in New Orleans, LA from 5:45pm to 7pm
Welcome, Introductions, and Reception
SIGMAA Chair Ginger Holmes-Rowell welcomed everyone in
attendance, and everyone introduced himself or herself. (See below for a
list of attendees).
Approval of Minutes from Business Meeting of 1-5-06
Copies of the 2006 meeting minutes were distributed. A motion to
approve the minutes was made by Pat Humphrey and seconded by
Nancy Boynton. The minutes were unanimously approved.
Officer Reports
Ginger Holmes Rowell (current chair):
 She reminded all that email is the primary means of
correspondence with members of the SIGMAA. It is important to
keep addresses updated in the MAA database.
 She introduced current officers:
Chair: Ginger Holmes-Rowell, Middle Tennessee State University
(rowell@mtsu.edu)
Treasurer: Murray Siegel, Governor’s School for Science and
Mathematics (siegel@gssm.k12.sc.us)
Past-Chair: Tom Moore, Grinnell College (mooret@grinnell.edu)
Chair-Elect: Chris Lacke, Rowan University (lacke@rowan.edu), who
was unable to attend this year’s meeting.
Secretary: Sue Schou, Idaho State University (schosue@isu.edu),
who was unable to attend this year’s meeting
 She reminded everyone of the SIGMAA-sponsored contributed
paper session on Innovative Uses of Graphs in Statistics Education to
be held Sunday, January 7 from 1:00 to 5:30 pm.
 Everyone was reminded of the award for best paper, which the
Executive Committee decided to rename from the “Dexter
Whittinghill Best Contributed Paper Award” to the “Dexter
Whittinghill Best Contributed Presentation Award” since that is a
more accurate description of the way the plaque for the award will
be presented. If there are multiple authors, only the individual who
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gave the presentation will receive the plaque each year; coauthors are encouraged to cite the award on their vitae, however.
Ginger and Tom presented the 2006 Best Contributed Paper Award
plaque to Allan Rossman for his presentation (co-authored with Beth
Chance) “Examples of Assessments to Improve Student Learning in
Introductory Statistics.”
Ginger inquired whether people had received the postcards from
the SIGMAA that were mailed in December. Those present
indicated they had received their card. The SIGMAA officers will
send the cards earlier next year, in time for a reminder to submit
abstracts and remind members of the election of officers.
Tom Moore (past chair)
Past Chair Tom Moore reported on the elections. These were run
electronically by the MAA for the first time this year. He asked if anyone
present had been disenfranchised: Dorothy Anway and Ann Watkins had
not been able to vote (email changes). Tom reported that a few email
bounces had occurred and were resolved to the best of his ability. John
McKenzie commented that the candidate biographies were not
available until he actually voted; he suggested that biographies be put
on the SIGMAA web page in future. This was received as a good idea.
Tom announced that candidates for Secretary were Nancy Boynton of
SUNY Fredonia and Leigh Lunsford of Longwood University. The winner
was Nancy Boynton. The candidates for Chair-elect were Pat Humphrey
of Georgia Southern University and Barbara Wainwright of Salisbury State.
The winner was Pat Humphrey.
Murray Siegel (Treasurer):
Treasurer Murray Siegel reported on the budget and known 2006
expenditures (he will not get fourth quarter numbers from MAA until late
January). In drafting the 2007 budget, he took what was approved for
2006 and inflated the numbers a bit. There will be no expenditures for
Mathfest 2007 as that will be a contributed paper session, rather than a
panel. The SIGMAA currently has 462 members; from each $10 dues, MAA
keeps $5 for administration, so the dues income to the SIGMAA for 2007 is
estimated to be $2600.00. The anticipated balance for 2006 year end is
$20,870.63.
Murray also reported on MathFest activities. At the 2006 meeting, there
were three panelists including himself speaking on “Enhancing the
Teaching of Advanced Placement Statistics”, and approximately 25-30
attendees, about half each high school teachers and college professors.
For 2007, a contributed paper session on “Innovative Ideas for Teaching
Introductory Statistics” has been approved. The deadline for submissions is
unknown at this time, but sessions are usually publicized in the April FOCUS
with submissions due in May. John McKenzie suggested publicizing it to
the StatEd section of ASA and NCTM as well.
Old Business
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Two items from the 2006 meeting are still unresolved: a charter
review and awards. The charter needs to be amended at least to
reflect that MAA is now conducting elections with a different
timeframe from that specified in the charter. Any possible awards
(undergraduate poster and outstanding TA or young professor)
need procedural decisions on how the winners are selected, as well
as recommendations for dollar amounts. Ginger said breakout
groups would address the awards at the conclusion of the business
meeting.
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John McKenzie reminded the group that a proposal had also been
made to make the positions of webmaster and newsletter editor
more formally recognized in the charter.
New Business

The SIGMAA has a need for a new newsletter editor since Pat
Humphrey has been elected chair-elect. Pat described the job as
she had been doing it. There were no volunteers at the meeting.
We will solicit for volunteers again in the newsletter.
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Elections to be held in 2007 for treasurer and chair-elect were
announced. Ginger will be running these as past-chair.
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Don Bentley asked about trying to coordinate activities and share
information with the new Mathematical Biology SIGMAA, as there
may be considerable overlap of interests. Conflicting SIGMAA
sessions have been a topic of concern for some time. Our
members most likely also have interests in the Quantitative Literacy
and Advanced High School Mathematics SIGMAAs. Officers will try
to deal with MAA to conflict with as few other SIGMAAs as possible,
but with eleven of them and only 3 evenings to hold business
meetings (for example) there will always be some conflict.
Announcements:

There is always a need for AP Statistics readers. This year the
reading will be in Louisville, KY June 3 – 9.

The second United States Conference on Teaching Statistics
(USCOTS) will be held May 17 – 19 at Ohio State. Ginger passed out
fliers on the conference and the sponsoring organization, the
Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics
Education (CAUSE).
Those present then broke into small groups to each discuss one of the
topics:
 Awards
 The SIGMAA website: how can it be improved?
 Involvement in K-12 education
 How can we “spend down” our treasury balance effectively?
(desired by MAA)
 What topics should the SIGMAA sponsor in future?
Report from the “Input from Members” Groups
During the SIGMAA Stat-Ed Business Meeting at the Joint Mathematics
Meetings in New Orleans, LA on Saturday, January 6, 2007, the members
met in groups to provide ideas for the executive committee. Notes from
the various groups’ brief meetings are reported below. Ideas that have
been suggested since the meeting are included as well. We will continue
to add ideas as members make suggestions. Please send your thoughts
to rowell@mtsu.edu. Periodically, she will update the lists and post them
to the web.
Ideas/Activities/Events for the Spending SIGMAA Funds and Additional
Activities for the SIGMAA to Sponsor
 Subsidize SIGMAA memberships for graduate students (not clear how
to do this or what this would mean).
 Subsidize conference registration for graduate students who give a talk
in a SIGMAA session.
 Offer award for best student presentation in a SIGMAA session (but so
few students give such a presentation).
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Offer support for encouraging graduate students in statistics to
consider careers in undergraduate teaching in math depts. (Perhaps
we could offer some funds for anyone who agrees to give a talk for
grad students along these lines.)
Offer support for SIGMAA members who are willing to visit high schools
and give talks promoting statistics as a career.
Write to MAA regional groups (sections) and AMATYC regional groups,
offering to supply speakers to give talks on statistics at their regional
meetings.
Offer financial support to worthy statistics education projects, such as
USCOTS and ICOTS. Perhaps these could be used for travel grants for
graduate students or faculty early in their careers.
Offer financial support to Project NExT, perhaps by sponsoring a Project
NExT Fellow, just as the ASA sponsors two Project NExT Fellows.
Offer award for best presentation at MathFest.
Just as the SIGMAA organizes a contributed paper session at every
JMM, perhaps we could try to ensure that there is always an MAA
minicourse on some aspect of statistics or statistics teaching at every
JMM.
Support a Project NExT Fellow is expensive (maybe $5000 per year), but
perhaps the SIGMAA could contribute $500-$1000 toward sponsoring a
Project NExT Fellow. This is especially valuable because it gets those
Fellows to the JMM, and those Fellows have the potential to become
future leaders of the SIGMAA
Another option for supporting NExT is that the SIGMAA could fund a
presenter to give a workshop for Projcet NExT Fellows about teaching
intro stat. Such a session often happens at MathFest, but perhaps the
SIGMAA could take the lead in recruiting the speaker and also funding
travel for the speaker.
The SIGMAA could offer free registration at JMM for people that it
invites to participate in panels or present a minicourse. This might be
especially helpful for minicourses, because we might want to have 3-4
presenters, and with so many presenters there's not much support from
the minicourse structure, so offering to pay registration for those
presenters could be very helpful.
Ideas for the SIGMAA Stat-Ed Webpage
 check to see if the MAA offers (requires) a template
 list of books for different classes
 brief book reviews could be added by members
 discussion board (down the road)
 A comprehensive set of online references - other organizations,
instructional data set collections, etc.
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A full list of members: names, affiliations & links (e-mail, webpage), and
affiliations
Ideas for Contributed Paper Sessions, Panels, and Workshops at the
National Meetings
 General Principle: Select topics for contributed paper session that are
flexible enough to allow people to easily fit in the program (many
people need to give presentations to be able to attend the meetings)
 Contributed Paper Session Ideas
 Projects for intro stat classes
 Using activities to teach statistics
 Could combine activities and projects and call it “Beyond the
Lecture”
 Second course in statistics (things you can do beyond Intro Stat I)
 Real – world examples
 Interdisciplinary things you have brought to your teaching
 Panel Ideas:
 Programs in statistics – majors and minors
 Scholarship of teaching and learning (could also be contributed
paper session)
 Workshop Ideas:
 Non-statisticians to teach statistics
 Selected advanced topics
 Ex: Time Series, Data Mining, Markov Chains, Monte Carlo
Ideas for Activities that Support K-12 Teachers
 Encourage ASA/MAA Joint Committee to form a Speaker’s Bureau to
provide active statisticians for classroom visitation in K-12 classes
 Provide resources for K-12 teachers
 Support internships for AP teachers
Awards for Teaching Assistants and Undergraduate Poster Sessions
 Teaching Assistant Award: Since most (though not all) statistics
teaching assistants are in statistics departments instead of math
departments, perhaps this award is more appropriate to be sponsored
by the American Statistical Association Section on Statistics Education.
Ginger Rowell will follow-up on this by contacting the chair of that
group, Jessica Utts. It was suggested that this is a timely idea as Jessica
is a proponent of TA training and support.
 Student Poster Award Ideas
 Idea for focus: “Best Use of Statistics” at the Student Poster
Submissions at the Joint Math Meetings
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A judging criteria would be needed. It was decided that some
homework would be required. Ginger Rowell will follow-up by
contacting Diane Thomas at Mt Clair State and/or Betty Mayfield
 How many posters typically have statistical content so we
would know how many judges are needed
 Find out how much money is given for the current poster
awards for mathematical content
 We could have many judges (Stat-Ed SIGMAA members at
the meeting)
 It was noted that this year the poster session was the same
time as the Stat-Ed Contributed Paper Session.
Meeting was adjourned.
2007 SIGMAA on Statistics Education Business Meeting Attendees
Name
Michael Posner
Dennis Kern
Laura McSweeney
Deborah Lurie
Pat Humphrey
Nancy Boynton
Dorothy Anway
Scott Alberts
George Cobb
Mary Parker
Don Bentley
John McKenzie
Robin Lock
Allan Rossman
Tom Moore
Dov Chelst
Carolyn Cuff
Dennis Walsh
Roger Nelson
Ann Watkins
Leigh Lunsford
Murray Siegel
Bob Hollister
Ginger Holmes-Rowell
Affiliation
Villanova University
Texas A&M – Texarkana
Fairfield University
Saint Joseph’s University
Georgia Southern
University
SUNY Fredonia
Univ. of Wisconsin –
Superior
Truman State University
Mount Holyoke College
Austin Community
College
Babson College
St. Lawrence University
Cal Poly – San Luis
Obispo
Grinnell College
DeVry University – NJ
Westminster College
Middle Tennessee State
Univ
Lewis & Clark College
Cal State Northridge
Longwood University
SC GSSM
Jacksonville University
Middle Tennesee State
Univ.
Email Address
michael.posner@villanova.edu
Dennis.kern@tamut.edu
lmcsweeney@mail.fairfield.edu
lurie@sju.edu
phumphre@georgiasouthern.edu
Boynton@fredonia.edu
danway@uwsuper.edu
salberts@truman.edu
gcobb@mtholyoke.edu
mparker@austincc.edu
dbentley@pomona.edu
mckenzie@babson.edu
rlock@stlawu.edu
arossman@calpoly.edu
mooret@grinnell.edu
dchelst@devry.edu
ccuff@westminster.edu
dwalsh@mtsu.edu
nelson@lclark.edu
Ann.watkins@csun.edu
lunsfordml@longwood.edu
siegel@gssm.k12.sc.us
Bhollis@ju.edu
rowell@mtsu.edu