Attracting Students to Statistics Pam Arroway Assistant Department Head Co-Director of Graduate Programs

Attracting Students to Statistics Pam Arroway Assistant Department Head Co-Director of Graduate Program Enthusiastic Recruiter of Students!

Attracting Students to Statistics  Where to find students  What to say to them  Big Picture (Statisticians Unite!)

Faculty involvement  Find graduate and undergraduate directors that are passionate about the position!

 Find other faculty that have good rapport with students (or connection to the recruiting activity)  Reward activities that attract students to the Department and to the field  Develop a culture of undergraduate research

Where to find students?

At home!

 Start at home – Pay attention to what the math folks are doing – Schedule a talk with math club (or stat club) – Advertise accessible seminars to undergrads – Look at math/applied math students on Dean’s List or in honor societies…send personal invitations  Invest in recruiting away from home…

Where to find students?

Undergrad Math Conferences!

 On your own campus!

 SUNMARC  Francis Marion U  Citadel  Illiana, MO State, Shenandoah, Pikes Peak, James Madison

Where to find students?

Summer programs  AMS list of Summer REUs in math  NSF has list of REUs  SUMSRI (Miami of Ohio, stat group)  EDGE (traveling, math focus)  RUSIS (Rice University, focus on stat! not listed on AMS site!!)  SIBS, BSURE  Others….WPI, UC Berkeley,

Where to find students?

 Statfest!

StatFest is a one-day conference aimed at encouraging students from under-represented groups to consider careers and graduate studies in the statistical sciences. The conference is an ongoing initiative of the American Statistical Association , through its Committee on Minorities in Statistics.  Iowa State this fall.

Where to find students?

Mathfest!

 NAM Mathfest – Similar to Statfest (not a lot of statisticians!) – November 13 -15, 2009 – University of the District of Columbia, DC  MAA Mathfest—different event, but may still be fruitful.

What to tell them?

 Why would anyone want to be a statistician?

– ASA Career Center – Amstat articles – News releases/university publications – ASA salary surveys – Your own story/research

What to tell them?

 What does grad school entail?

– Your own program, of course – Similarities/differences among programs – Don’t forget to mention funding!

What to tell them?

 How to apply – Timeline – Parts of an application – Researching programs  How to prepare – Courses – Summer programs

Recruiting Philosophy  Advertise for the field as a whole  Students are more receptive to being recruited to the field than to a particular program.

 Nobody wants to recruit a student who won’t succeed in their own program.

 If a good student ends up in a stat program, that is success!

Recruiting Philosophy  Recruiting is as much about the faculty you meet as it is about the students.

 They want to know – That their student can be successful in your program and after your program – That you will take care of their student – That you are not luring their students away from math

Bigger Picture  Can’t just cherry-pick students that others have rounded up.

 Need more summer programs in statistics!

REUs attract students to a field  If a student wants to find an REU in math – http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/list_result.cfm?unitid=5044 – Almost 60 programs are listed here.

– Nine list statistics in the topics  Need similar resource that focuses on Statistics programs (in progress)  Need more!! summer programs in statistics

Developing an REU culture  Use existing campus-wide programs – AGEP – HHMI  Add REU to your NSF grant  Make use of campus-wide summer workshops for REU students – Professional Development – Social events

Invest in “supporting” conferences  Statfest – Travels every year – NC State hosted in 2003 – ISU will host 2009 – Geographic location is really important!

Invest in “supporting” conferences  MathFest, Infinite Possibilities, SACNAS, CAARMS – Programs targeting students from under represented groups in math (or science more generally) – NC State hosted IPC in 2007 – Make sure Statistics has a presence at these conferences!

Invest in “supporting” conferences  EDGE – Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education – NC State will be hosting in 2010  Pipeline Workshop – Invited faculty from MSIs – “Recruited” them to send their students to statistics – NC State 2005

NSF GRFs  Historical success rate is about 10% – Across all fields except CSC and Engr  Number of awards is basically proportional to number of applicants per field – Special programs for women in CSC and Engr  Number of awards is going to triple in next few years!

NSF GRFs  In recent years, math applicants make up about 3% of applicant pool.

– About 230 applicants  In 2009, about 10% of math applicants selected Probability and Statistics as subfield.

 Recall, stat grads are ~30% of math grads

Year

2006 2007 2008 2009*

Math Apps

232 229 NSF GRFs

Math Awards

24 28 23 63

Prob/Stat apps

24

Prob/Stat Awards

1 3 1 7 • Awardees go to: UC Berkeley (3), Stanford (3), Duke (2), Carnegie Mellon, Cambridge, UCLA, U Chicago • Doesn’t include biostat (can’t separate these well) • *2009 was first year of increased number of awards

NSF GRFs  Statistics deserves more of these, but we have to apply!

 Encourage your students to apply – Fall of 1 st year – Fall of 2 nd year  Encourage recruits/applicants to apply – Fall of senior year

Conclusion  Takes time, resources, enthusiastic faculty  There is a bigger picture that we as a field need to work on  Start with existing resources and work up!