Department of Statistics Annual Report, May 1, 1986 to April 30, 1987

              May 1, 1986-Apri1 30, 1987
Department of Statistics - Dr. Dean L. Isaacson, Department Head
Statistics at ISU is made up of three interlocking and complementary parts:
The Department of Statistics in the College of Sciences and Humanities; the
Statistical Laboratory, an institute under the Office of the Vice President
for Research; and the Statistics Department of the Agriculture and Home
Economics Experiment Station. Faculty of the S&H department typically also
hold appointments in one or both of the other components of the statistical
center. Some of them hold joint appointments with other academic departments
in recognition of applied statistics subject-matter expertise. Such joint
appointments and similar arrangements made for support of statistics graduate
students are one source of our vitality in applied statistics and strength in
providing consulting service to the rest of the university.
Our goals:
a. To be a world leader in a broadly based program of research and teaching
of statistics at the graduate level, with special emphasis on applied
statistics.
b. To offer useful and challenging graduate level service courses designed,
through sectioning and appropriate staffing, to meet the needs of differ­ent
groups of students; and to provide superior statistical consulting
services throughout the University for faculty and students engaged in
research.
c. To teach a broad spectrum of courses at the undergraduate level, recogniz­ing
the differing requirements of students in the biological, physical, or
social sciences, in the humanities, and in business and engineering; at
the same time to offer a wide choice of courses to undergraduate statis­tics
and biometry majors.
d. To extend superior statistical consulting and research services beyond the
University to researchers in local, state, and federal agencies and
industry as time and resources permit.
1986-87 highlights:
a-I. The Department of Statistics has decided to undertake the revision of
the Snedecor-Cochran book on Statistical Methods for the Iowa State
University Press. This will be the eighth edition of George W. Snedecor's
pioneering book, which has been translated into a number of languages and has
had a world-wide influence on the use of statistics in agricultural research
and development. A contract was signed with the press in January 1987.
a-2. Our strong national and international role in the field of statistics
was recognized in several ways.
Noel Cressie and Glen Meeden were honored as fellows of the American Statis­tical
Association. William Q. Meeker, Jr., editor-e1ect, became editor of
Technometrics for 1987-89. William Kennedy continued as editor of The
American Statistician.