The ASA is the world’s largest professional society for statisticians, with nearly 19,000 members spread across the globe. It is nearly three times larger than the second largest statistical society. As previously noted in this blog, the ASA is “The Big Tent for Statistics.” In a short series of blogs, we’ll go behind the scenes for a glimpse of the ASA’s operations. We’ll start with the most important component, our staff.
Thirty-four people comprise the ASA’s staff, and most of them are located in our headquarters building in the Old Town section of Alexandria, Virginia. You might be surprised to learn that only three staff members are statisticians (Lynn Palmer, Director of Programs, Rebecca Nichols, Director of Education, and me). In associations generally, most staff members work in positions that are fundamental to the operation of any association, be it the American Statistical Association, the American Association of Airport Executives across the street from us, the American Correctional Association and the Physician Assistant Education Association a few blocks down the street, or any of the hundreds of other professional and trade associations in our neighborhood.
While only a few ASA staff members are statisticians, the rest are talented professionals in specific areas of expertise, and without them there would be a much less vibrant ASA. Broadly speaking, ASA staffing areas are:
- Accounting, finance, and HR (5 people)
- Committee, section, and chapter support (3)
- Communications and PR (5)
- Customer care (5)
- Education and advocacy (2)
- Executive staff (3)
- Information technology (3)
- Marketing (2)
- Meetings planning (4)
- Publications and advertising (2)
Of course, in a business operation the size of the ASA, almost everyone is called on to do work that crosses the boundaries of these broad areas.
A natural question for a statistician to ask is “How does ASA’s staff size compare with others?” It is tempting to compare based on the size of membership, but such simple comparisons are not helpful. For example, the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) has about the same size staff as the ASA and slightly larger membership, but a significant portion of MAA staff is devoted to the American Mathematics Competitions. On the other hand, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) has several thousand fewer members than the ASA, but twice the number of staff. That’s because SIAM has a significant publishing operation including book series and journals that it handles in house.
Rather than working by comparison, ASA determines its staff size based on the needs of the membership and the strategic operations of the society. The executive team of the ASA and the Board of Directors evaluates staffing needs carefully and regularly.
We’ll say more about what happens “under the hood” of the ASA in future “ASA at 175” blogs.
In 2014, the American Statistical Association is celebrating its 175th anniversary. Over the course of this year, this blog will highlight aspects of that celebration, and look broadly at the ASA and its activities. Please contact ASA Executive Director Ron Wasserstein (ron@amstat.org) if you would like to post an entry to this blog.