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I am enjoying attending the Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM), the largest mathematics meeting in the world, which this year is taking place at the Baltimore Convention Center.  It is a fascinating meeting, similar to the Joint Statistical Meetings in many ways.

The American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) partner to organize JMM. Partnerships are important to the success of professional societies, and its 175^th year, the ASA is involved in many partnerships.  In this blog I will say a few words about our partnerships with mathematical societies.

The ASA collaborates with AMS, MAA, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) to form the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM).  The presidents and executive directors of these four societies meet together twice a year to confer on matters of mutual importance. In addition, the four societies work together to organize and promote Mathematics Awareness Month, celebrated each April, and the JPBM Communications Award, awarded annually. 

We are engaged collectively with those societies in other ways as well. 

• The Institute for Mathematical Statistics joins those four societies to form the Joint Data Committee that guides the collection and dissemination of data on matters of concern to the mathematical sciences community.
• These societies and several others form the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (CBMS). CBMS and its member societies “work together and support each other in their efforts to promote research, improve education, and expand the uses of mathematics.”
• The Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences is a product of the combined efforts of AMS, ASA, IMS, MAA, and SIAM, along with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the Association for Women in Mathematics, and the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC).

 In addition, we have individual partnerships with most of these societies:

• We share with MAA a Joint Committee on Undergraduate Statistics.
• We share with NCTM a Joint Committee on Curriculum in Statistics and Probability.
• We share with AMATYC a Joint Committee on Statistics in Two-Year Colleges.
• With SIAM we share the ASA-SIAM Book Series on Statistics and Applied Probability, and the Journal of Uncertainty Quantification.

Among many other things, these partnerships allow us to address difficult problems that confront us.  We work together to advocate for better preparation for teachers of statistics, for example.  (See a statement on K-12 teaching in partnership with NCTM, and soon to be released is a statement prepared in collaboration with MAA about teaching undergraduate statistics.)

As I look out at the beautiful Inner Harbor in Baltimore at the end of a wonderful day at JMM, I am deeply appreciative of these partnerships with learned societies in mathematics.