What is the Council of Chapters Traveling Course?
The Council of Chapters Traveling Courses provide low-cost courses for ASA Chapters. Chapters currently have the option of the courses being presented virtually or in-person. The chapter, speaker(s), and Chair of the Traveling Course committee will decide the best option for each course presentation. The Council of Chapters sponsors this activity by paying speaker honoraria and, in the case of an in-person presentation, speaker travel to and from the host site. The Chapter is in charge of advertising and registration. If the course is presented virtually, the Chapter will host the course and provide the platform (Zoom, WebEx, Microsoft Teams, etc.). If it is to be an in-person course, the Chapter is responsible for onsite presenter travel expenses (hotel, meals, ground transportation) and course costs (production of course handouts, catering, room rental, AV equipment rental, etc).
Regardless of the presentation format, the greater of $25 for each registrant or $500 is paid back to the Council of Chapters.
The Traveling Course committee, made up of at least one member of each of the six Chapter Districts and ASA staff liaison, chooses the local Chapters and works with the speakers and Chapters to select dates for each course. The courses are often awarded to smaller Chapters and Chapters that have not had a traveling course recently.
2025 Traveling Courses (available May 2025 through April 2026)
The 2025 course offerings have been selected! To view the offerings and the schedule please visit the Traveling Course Schedule page.
SCHEDULE HERE
2026 Traveling Courses (available May 2026 through April 2027)
The 2026 course offerings cover the entire year. To allow as much flexibility in planning the best use of the instructors' time, the deadline for applications is January 22, 2026, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time.
2026 Traveling Course Offerings (click on title for course description):
Tree-Based Machine Learning Methods for Prediction and Variable Selection
Instructors: Hemant Ishwaran and Min Lu, University of Miami
Course Length: Half day and Virtual Only
Improving Power and Precision in Randomized Trials Using Covariate Adjustment
Instructors: Michael Rosenblum and Josh Betz, Johns Hopkins; Kelly Van Lancker, University of Gent
Course Length: Half day and Virtual
Survival Analysis Methods Correcting for Treatment Switching Effects in RCTs: Theory and SAS/R Code
Instructors: Dr. Jing Xu, Senior Director, Takeda; Dr. Bingxia Wang, Senior Director, Takeda; Dr. Qingxia (Cindy) Chen, Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Vanderbilt University
Course Length: Full day and open to both in-person and virtual
Quick-thinking, Confident, Communicative, and Collaborative: Fundamentals of Applied Improvisation for (Bio)statisticians and Data Scientists
Instructors: Richard C. Zink, PhD, Principal Statistical Fellow, JMP Statistical Discovery LLC
Course Length: Full day or half day. In-person.
Random Effects and Recurrent Events in Survival Analysis
Instructors: Milind Phadnis, University of Kansas Medical Center
Course Length: Half day or full day. Virtual or in-person with a strong preference for in-person.
DEADLINE: January 22, 2026, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time. APPLY HERE.