Faculty Meeting

The regular meeting of the faculty of the Department of Statistics was held in a hybrid format via Zoom and in Padelford Hall, room C-301 at 12:30pm, October 2, 2023. Abel Rodriguez, Department Chair, presided at the meeting. Kristine Chan was recording secretary.

The meeting started with all participants sharing updates on personal news, achievements over the summer, and progress of fall quarter to allow the faculty, staff and graduate student representatives to get acquainted/reacquainted.

Announcements

Title IX training: The Chair reminded faculty to complete this training, if it has not been done so already. An email was sent last year to all UW employees to complete it. The College of Arts & Sciences Dean has access to view who completed and did not complete the training – unfortunately, the Chair, Administrator, and/or Divisional Dean do not have access to view this information.

No faculty meetings happening on 10/09/2023 and 10/16/2023 due to the Chair going on travel as well as an NSA meeting happening on 10/16/2023 – M. Meila will send more information to the department email list.

Summer update: The Chair shared slides on what went on during the summer.

• UW Financial Transformation has come to fruition with the launch of Work Finance in July 2023. V. Graybeal, Director of Finance & Operations, asked for faculty’s patience with this transition as it affects the processing times for payroll, reimbursements, procurement, etc. MyFD will still be around, but only until June 2024.
• Faculty Searches are happening this academic year for three types of positions: more information about this topic is in ‘New Business’.
• There have been updates to PhD Handbook and a creation of a new MS Handbook.
• The undergraduate program page has undergone updates to reflect the old and new program. It has been live since 09/29/2023.
• There are updates to the reimbursement amounts for seminar dinners ($45 à $50) and to post-general student travel awards ($1,000à $1,100)
• There is a budding effort to potentially submit a proposal to NSF’s Math Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) program.  Those interested should contact the Department Chair.
• Departmental Memos of Understanding (MOU) updates are still in progress.
• Policies and procedures page on our department website is still in progress.
• The 2023 Joint Statistical Meeting (JSM) reception, joint with Biostatistics was successfully held.
• This year’s orientation was a success – we have 33 MS and 10 new PhD students who started their graduate studies in our programs this fall.
• Master of Science in Data Science (MSDS) program has changed offices to NE 45th ST and 11th Ave NE.
• Upcoming joint dinner with Biostatistics will be happening on October 20th, 2023 – invitation will be coming soon via department email.

New Business

Faculty search updates and discussion: we will be conducting faculty searches for three types of positions this academic year: tenure-track Assistant Professor, Assistant Teaching Professor, and Acting Assistant Professor. The description of search process per position were shared, that details the process and timelines.

PhD requirements working group: The Chair shared the PhD Curriculum Review Committee charge. The goal of the charge is to motivate a review of several areas of current curriculum for PhD students. The committee will consist of the GPC (Tyler McCormick), Jon Wakefield, Alex Luedtke, Zaid Harchaoui, and the two GSRs for the PhD program (Alex Jiang and Trinity Fan). Feedback on the charge was requested, and a vote on the revised charge will be sent electronically early next week.

Adjournment

There being no other items to discuss, the meeting transitioned to an executive session at 1:55pm, and was later adjourned at 2:00pm.