ASA Connect

 View Only

  • 1.  Help our colleagues at UNL

    Posted 03-26-2026 20:49

    Dear Statistics Community,

                  You are probably aware that the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) decided on December 5, 2025, to eliminate its statistics department along with three other academic departments. This includes the closing of all degree programs and the firing of tenured and tenure-track faculty in these units. Their last day of employment with UNL will be the 14th of May, 2027. The decision of elimination by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents was taken arbitrarily, without any warning, based on a flawed analysis of historical performance data. Members of the statistics department and supporting units have pointed this out to the UNL administration repeatedly, with emphasis on the many strong and supportive letters from the statistics community, but to no avail. This action sets a poor precedent for statistics as a discipline, threatens the academic principles of tenure, and is an infringement on the academic freedom to research topics without administrative interference. The budget reduction model used at UNL could easily be replicated at other universities.

    Our colleagues at UNL have excellent credentials and documented strengths in both teaching and research. Details of their achievements, research, and teaching interests can be found on their respective websites (see https://lnkd.in/eFpxBznd). They are looking for timely employment opportunities and, in some cases, support for pending applications for permanent residency. We appeal to the broader statistical community for information regarding professional opportunities, both domestic and international. Information can be sent to the individual faculty via email or to the Department Head, Bhaskar Bhattacharya (bbhattacharya8@unl.edu).

    Thank you.



    ------------------------------
    Ron Wasserstein
    Executive Director
    The American Statistical Association
    Promoting the Practice and Profession of Statistics
    Striving to be an antiracist
    732 N. Washington St.
    Alexandria, VA 22314
    703-684-1221
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Help our colleagues at UNL

    Posted 03-27-2026 08:12

    Thanks Ron, for this appalling information.  I think a letter writing campaign would be a good idea,  The president is Jeffrey Gold at president@nebraska.edu.  (Got this from AI) or 402-472-8636. Stress that society needs to aspire to evidence-based solutions and eliminating statistics departments sends a strong signal against this aspiration.

    Best,

    Jon



    ------------------------------
    Jonathan Shuster
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Help our colleagues at UNL

    Posted 03-30-2026 13:12

    UNL is having roundtable discussions for its "Our Bold Path Forward" - what the Interim Chancellor calls its "strategic framework." Interim Chancellor Katherine Ankerson has a website encouraging university faculty, staff and students to "submit your ideas." This website does not appear to be open to non-UNL people, but Jonathan Shuster's idea of writing to upper administration is a good one. I would suggest sending comments to the Interim Chancellor. Just as an FYI, President Gold proved himself to be unmoved by the considerable feedback he received last Fall in the run-up to the Board of Regents meeting. He did admit in January that he felt "misled" by the metrics used by the former Chancellor, Rodney Bennett, who resigned shortly after the Regents meeting, and about whom the Faculty Senate passed a near-unanimous "no confidence" vote last November. President Gold said that although he was misled, the Regents' decision stood (and by implication, he stood by the decisions). Anyway, if letters from ASA members have any effect (I'm not optimistic) it will probably be ones to Interim Chancellor Ankerson. Her email address is chancellorankerson@unl.edu.

    Walt Stroup, Emeritus Professor of Statistics, UNL



    ------------------------------
    Walter Stroup
    Emeritus Professor
    University of Nebraska
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Help our colleagues at UNL

    Posted 03-31-2026 08:51

    Thanks, Walter.  I will include the Chancellor in my unique request.

    Thus is a dance we experienced here at the University of Florida (UF) in the late 90s and early 2000s.  In that time, the UF statistics department went from 8th ranked to virtually unranked. As our faculty retired, the department had to apply for replacements, and we were either turned down or forced to replace senior faculty by new PhDs.  When Bernie Machen became UF president to 2003, everything changed for the better. He was an aspirational president and his vision was to put the university as a whole into a top 10 state university. He was able to secure resources from a very tight state government and from  donations from alumni. 

    Nebraska is ranked 85 in US News and Reports, hardly a time to disband their statistics department or make other cuts.  It will be especially disastrous for the student population who will become statistically illiterate at the very time when they are being fed huge amounts of information on social media and elsewhere, much of which has no basis.  The University of Nebraska leadership should be aspirational and figure out how to get more resources to properly fund essential departments such as statistics.

    The top 10 state universities all have vibrant statistics programs and as I sure you would agree, statistics departments are the optimal source for teaching students about evidence-based inference making. We teach our students to be healthy skeptics.

    I plan to copy Bernie Machen on my letter to the President and Chancellor.

      Watch this entertaining youtube presentation.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xipwGEETTA

    Best,

    Jon



    ------------------------------
    Jonathan Shuster
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


Related Content