NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
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The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce Alberts and Dr. Robert M. White are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
The National Research Council established the Board on Mathematical Sciences in 1984. The objectives of the Board are to maintain awareness and active concern for the health of the mathematical sciences and serve as the focal point in the National Research Council for issues connected with the mathematical sciences. In addition, the Board is designed to conduct studies for federal agencies and maintain liaison with the mathematical sciences communities and academia, professional societies, and industry.
Support for this project was provided by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMS-9221287. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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COMMITTEE ON APPLIED AND THEORETICAL STATISTICS
JON R. KETTENRING,
Bell Communications Research,
Chair
YVONNE BISHOP,
U.S. Department of Energy
MARY ELLEN BOCK,
Purdue University
CLIFFORD C. CLOGG,
Pennsylvania State University
MARJORIE G. HAHN,
Tufts University
DOUGLAS M. HAWKINS,
University of Minnesota
DAVID G. HOEL,
Medical University of South Carolina
KARL E. PEACE,
Biopharmaceutical Research Consultants
STEPHEN M. POLLOCK,
University of Michigan
DARYL PREGIBON,
AT&T Bell Laboratories
Staff
JOHN R. TUCKER, Senior Program Officer
BOARD ON MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES
SHMUEL WINOGRAD,
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center,
Chair
JEROME SACKS,
National Institute of Statistical Sciences,
Vice-Chair
LOUIS AUSLANDER,
City University of New York System
HYMAN BASS,
Columbia University
LAWRENCE D. BROWN,
Cornell University
AVNER FRIEDMAN,
University of Minnesota
JOHN F. GEWEKE,
University of Minnesota
JAMES GLIMM,
State University of New York at Stony Brook
GERALD J. LIEBERMAN,
Stanford University
PAUL S. MUHLY,
University of Iowa
RONALD F. PEIERLS,
Brookhaven National Laboratory
DONALD ST. P. RICHARDS,
University of Virginia
KAREN K. UHLENBECK,
University of Texas at Austin
MARY F. WHEELER,
Rice University
ROBERT J. ZIMMER,
University of Chicago
Ex Officio Member
JON R. KETTENRING,
Bell Communications Research Chair, Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics
Staff
JOHN E. LAVERY, Director
RUTH E. O"BRIEN, Staff Associate
JOHN R. TUCKER, Senior Program Officer
BARBARA WRIGHT, Administrative Assistant
COMMISSION ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS, AND APPLICATIONS
RICHARD N. ZARE,
Stanford University,
Chair
RICHARD S. NICHOLSON,
American Association for the Advancement of Science,
Vice-Chair
STEPHEN L. ADLER,
Institute for Advanced Study
JOHN A. ARMSTRONG,
IBM Corporation (retired)
SYLVIA T. CEYER,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
AVNER FRIEDMAN,
University of Minnesota
SUSAN L. GRAHAM,
University of California at Berkeley
ROBERT J. HERMANN,
United Technologies Corporation
HANS MARK,
University of Texas at Austin
CLAIRE E. MAX,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
CHRISTOPHER F. McKEE,
University of California at Berkeley
JAMES W. MITCHELL,
AT&T Bell Laboratories
JEROME SACKS,
National Institute of Statistical Sciences
A. RICHARD SEEBASS III,
University of Colorado at Boulder
CHARLES P. SLICHTER,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
ALVIN W. TRIVELPIECE,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
NORMAN METZGER, Executive Director
Competent statisticians will be front line troops in our war for survival — but how do we get them? I think there is now a wide readiness to agree that what we want are neither mere theorem provers nor mere users of a cookbook. A proper balance of theory and practice is needed and, more important, statisticians must learn to be good scientists, a talent which has to be acquired by experience and example.
—George E. P. Box, "Science and Statistics"
Preface
At its August 1992 meeting in Boston, the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics (CATS) noted widespread sentiment in the statistical community that upper-level undergraduate and graduate curricula for statistics majors and postdoctoral training for statisticians are currently structured in ways that do not provide sufficient exposure to modern statistical analysis, computational and graphical tools, communication skills, and the evergrowing interdisciplinary uses of statistics. Approaches and materials once considered standard are being rethought. The growth that statistics has undergone is often not reflected in the education that future statisticians receive. There is a need to incorporate more meaningfully into the curriculum the computational and graphical tools that are today so important to many professional statisticians. There is a need for improved training of statistics students in written and oral communication skills, which are crucial for effective interaction with scientists and policy makers. More realistic experience is needed in various application areas for which statistics is now a key to further progress.
In response to this sentiment, CATS initiated a project on modern interdisciplinary university statistics education. With support from the National Science Foundation, CATS organized and held a one-and-one-half-day symposium on that topic in conjunction with the August 1993 San Francisco Joint Statistical Meetings. The symposium's focus was what changes in statistics education are needed to (1) incorporate interdisciplinary training into the upper-undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral statistics programs, (2) bring the upper-undergraduate and graduate statistics curricula up to date, and (3) improve apprenticing of statistics graduate and postdoctoral students and appropriately reward faculty mentors.
These proceedings have been compiled to capture the timely and important presentations and discussions that took place at that symposium. It should be noted that the opinions expressed in this volume are those of the speakers or discussants and do not necessarily represent the views of CATS or of the National Research Council. It is hoped that these presentations and discussions will not only initiate a process of long overdue change in upper-undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral education for statisticians, but will also stimulate the incorporation of interdisciplinary experience and realistic apprenticing in the nation's programs for statistical science majors, advanced degree candidates, and postdoctoral students. It is also hoped that this changing of the nation's statistics education programs will benefit the nation in a larger sense by serving as a model for other disciplines, such as mathematics and the sciences, to emulate.
Contents
Opening Remarks |
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What the Customer Needs in Statisticians |
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What Industry Needs |
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What Academia Needs |
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What the Government Needs |
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A Larger Perspective |
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The Content of Courses, and Educational Experiences: What Should They Be to Address the Customer's Needs? |
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Educating Statisticians for the 21st Century |
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Modernizing Statistics PhD Programs |
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Respondent |
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Respondent |
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Some International Perspectives |
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How — and How Not — to Implement Content and Experiences |
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A University Statistics Program Based on Quality Principles |
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Chance: A Course About Current Chance News |
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Modernizing Graduate Programs in Statistics — Case Study |
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Respondent What Is Interdisciplinary Research? |
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Respondent |
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