ASA Connect

A number of things have been prompting me lately to think about what we can do to get better communication going among the members, especially the young one, of our professional societies.  One prompter is the fact that my stint as President of the International Biometric Society starts on January 1st!   Another is the recent flurry of communications regarding the unpleasant and unwelcome experiences of a young female statistician being harassed at professional conferences and online by senior male colleagues who should know better.  It seems to me that finding effective ways to communicate better so that concerns can be aired effectively would be a great start.   I am curious how fellow ASA members find the ASA Community in terms of being an effective communication channel.  Do you read posts often?  do you post?  Do you find the content useful?  I'd love to hear your thoughts (and I am very curious about what will happen after I submit this post!).   Basically I am doing a little experiment here.

------------------------------
Louise Ryan
Longstanding ASA Member
Now at University of Technology Sydney
------------------------------

Original Message------

A number of things have been prompting me lately to think about what we can do to get better communication going among the members, especially the young one, of our professional societies.  One prompter is the fact that my stint as President of the International Biometric Society starts on January 1st!   Another is the recent flurry of communications regarding the unpleasant and unwelcome experiences of a young female statistician being harassed at professional conferences and online by senior male colleagues who should know better.  It seems to me that finding effective ways to communicate better so that concerns can be aired effectively would be a great start.   I am curious how fellow ASA members find the ASA Community in terms of being an effective communication channel.  Do you read posts often?  do you post?  Do you find the content useful?  I'd love to hear your thoughts (and I am very curious about what will happen after I submit this post!).   Basically I am doing a little experiment here.

------------------------------
Louise Ryan
Longstanding ASA Member
Now at University of Technology Sydney
------------------------------

Louise,

I certainly read the ASA discussion boards frequently (I think the daily ASA Connect Digest is very useful for this - every morning when I wake up, it gives me a few things to look at), and I chime in when I feel I have something useful to offer or a further question to ask in relation to a given thread and/or a specific post.

Re: good communication and airing concerns, I think there's an important distinction between communications and concerns that are related to things like statistical theory and practice (i.e. whether the data are being presented correctly, resolving a programming question, asking for a textbook recommendation or source of good examples, advisement on analytic approaches, how to interact with or understand a challenging collaborator) versus concerns that are more personal, such as harassment in a department or workplace. 

A public discussion board seems the logical place for discussions of statistical theory, statistical practice, professional development, and other things of that nature.  Issues related to personal conduct are, of course, a thornier matter, and one that I do not have a good answer for.  

One of my good friends is a division chief at a hospital.  He is one of the nicest & most purely decent people that I know, and would never encourage or tolerate inappropriate behavior in the workplace.  He confided to me once that since being named the chief, his greatest challenge had nothing to do with the practice of medicine or healthcare, but managing relationships between the division employees and trying to decide when something constituted true misconduct/harassment versus things that should be resolved with a simple "Let's all be adults about this and move on."  He told me the story two physicians squabbling over their respective clinical responsibilities; in the aftermath, one of the physicians merely sent the division chief an email with a definition copy/pasted from the Internet of workplace bullying.  He responded that he was happy to hear their concerns if they felt they were being mistreated, but that they needed to be willing to go on the record with specifics and say why they felt this constituted bullying; otherwise there was really not much that he could do (and in fact, if the "victim" was unwilling to provide that, my friend was concerned about a "counter-claim" of sorts by the alleged "bully" for the accusation of "bullying" without specifically saying what had occurred that spawned the accusation).

The reason I tell that story - if it's that difficult to resolve a situation within a single division or department, it seems that playing out he-said, she-said regarding accusations of something serious as harassment or personal misconduct on a public discussion board has some potentially nasty consequences (potentially even legal ones? I am no expert).  I'm not sure what the best place is to have those communications, but I am glad to hear any ideas that you or anyone else may have.

To close on a more constructive note re: facilitating communication, one thing that I have seen a few places which is definitely a good idea: at any scientific meeting, have some sort of designated "meetup" space for a) young/early career professionals or b) the conference "orphan" who is there but does not know anyone that is looking for someone to eat lunch and converse with.  It can be intimidating, if you're at a conference alone, to walk up to people you do not know and say "Hello, I'm ____, would you like to have lunch with me today?" so I think any efforts to smooth that over and help people make those connections are good ones.

------------------------------
Andrew D. Althouse, PhD
Supervisor of Statistical Projects
UPMC Heart & Vascular Institute
Presbyterian Hospital, Office C701
Phone: 412-802-6811
Email: althousead@upmc.edu
Twitter: @ADAlthousePhD
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-20-2017 18:24
From: Louise Ryan
Subject: Its challenging to get good communication happening!

A number of things have been prompting me lately to think about what we can do to get better communication going among the members, especially the young one, of our professional societies.  One prompter is the fact that my stint as President of the International Biometric Society starts on January 1st!   Another is the recent flurry of communications regarding the unpleasant and unwelcome experiences of a young female statistician being harassed at professional conferences and online by senior male colleagues who should know better.  It seems to me that finding effective ways to communicate better so that concerns can be aired effectively would be a great start.   I am curious how fellow ASA members find the ASA Community in terms of being an effective communication channel.  Do you read posts often?  do you post?  Do you find the content useful?  I'd love to hear your thoughts (and I am very curious about what will happen after I submit this post!).   Basically I am doing a little experiment here.

------------------------------
Louise Ryan
Longstanding ASA Member
Now at University of Technology Sydney
------------------------------

Original Message------

A number of things have been prompting me lately to think about what we can do to get better communication going among the members, especially the young one, of our professional societies.  One prompter is the fact that my stint as President of the International Biometric Society starts on January 1st!   Another is the recent flurry of communications regarding the unpleasant and unwelcome experiences of a young female statistician being harassed at professional conferences and online by senior male colleagues who should know better.  It seems to me that finding effective ways to communicate better so that concerns can be aired effectively would be a great start.   I am curious how fellow ASA members find the ASA Community in terms of being an effective communication channel.  Do you read posts often?  do you post?  Do you find the content useful?  I'd love to hear your thoughts (and I am very curious about what will happen after I submit this post!).   Basically I am doing a little experiment here.

------------------------------
Louise Ryan
Longstanding ASA Member
Now at University of Technology Sydney
------------------------------

Louise, "a little experiment," eh? That's the phrase I used early in the last century when explaining to my mother how the gobs of flaming something got onto the ceiling of my room after I combined some items in my supposedly child-safe chemistry set with some things found among my mother's cleaning supplies or the solvents in my father's workshop.

But to respond to your query, I would say that ASA Community offers a truly exceptional communication tool for our community. I only joined ASA a few years ago after decades of publishing on statistical malpractice by both statisticians and other scientists. And I was blown away by how much more  opportunity there was for extensive and democratic intra-organization discussion there was, as compared with any of the other societies (mostly biological) I have belonged to.

These discussions are one of the fastest ways for post-university youngsters and oldsters alike to get up to speed on issues, including issues they have long gotten bad advice on from their statistics teachers and textbooks. My sense is that most ASA members, perhaps especially those of a theoretical rather than applied bent, need to "unlearn" more than they realize. Prime example: most still think it is obligatory or appropriate to specify alpha in doing statistical tests, the belated recent ASA statement (and much literature preceding it) on the matter notwithstanding.

The only other society-sponsored process that, over time, helps with that re-education is the m.o. where editors get multiple (ideally never less than three) review on a ms, and then sends copies of all reviews, along with the decision letter, to each of the individual reviewers. Often each of the multiple reviewers get to see via that process: 1) ms problems they overlooked, 2) references to literature they did not know about,  3) inappropriate recommendations from other reviewers, and 4) inappropriate recommendations they themselves made.

I do not think, however, that ASA community is a useful forum to deal with sexual harrassment issues, simply because I don't see those problems being any different within ASA or the broader community of statisticians than they are elsewhere in society. And I suspect everyone agrees that it would be very destructive to get involved in public discussion of the personal behavior or misbehavior of particular ASA members. Presumably the moderator would not allow that. 

Where ASA members could make a much larger contribution than they do now, would be the public outing of all those journalists, scientists, editorialists and organizations who, often deliberately, put out misleading pieces, even absolute falsehoods, about what the various types of raw or semi-raw "disparity" data show and what policies society should implementaccordingly. Both the popular and scientific literature dealing with racial or gender disparities in health statistics, university faculties, traffic stops, etc. is rife with heavily politicized, statistically bogus conclusions on such matters. And ASA members and publications have not always been blameless. Ok, best I stop here....!


------------------------------
Stuart Hurlbert
Emeritus Professor of Biology
San Diego State University
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-20-2017 18:24
From: Louise Ryan
Subject: Its challenging to get good communication happening!

A number of things have been prompting me lately to think about what we can do to get better communication going among the members, especially the young one, of our professional societies.  One prompter is the fact that my stint as President of the International Biometric Society starts on January 1st!   Another is the recent flurry of communications regarding the unpleasant and unwelcome experiences of a young female statistician being harassed at professional conferences and online by senior male colleagues who should know better.  It seems to me that finding effective ways to communicate better so that concerns can be aired effectively would be a great start.   I am curious how fellow ASA members find the ASA Community in terms of being an effective communication channel.  Do you read posts often?  do you post?  Do you find the content useful?  I'd love to hear your thoughts (and I am very curious about what will happen after I submit this post!).   Basically I am doing a little experiment here.

------------------------------
Louise Ryan
Longstanding ASA Member
Now at University of Technology Sydney
------------------------------

Original Message------

Louise, "a little experiment," eh? That's the phrase I used early in the last century when explaining to my mother how the gobs of flaming something got onto the ceiling of my room after I combined some items in my supposedly child-safe chemistry set with some things found among my mother's cleaning supplies or the solvents in my father's workshop.

But to respond to your query, I would say that ASA Community offers a truly exceptional communication tool for our community. I only joined ASA a few years ago after decades of publishing on statistical malpractice by both statisticians and other scientists. And I was blown away by how much more  opportunity there was for extensive and democratic intra-organization discussion there was, as compared with any of the other societies (mostly biological) I have belonged to.

These discussions are one of the fastest ways for post-university youngsters and oldsters alike to get up to speed on issues, including issues they have long gotten bad advice on from their statistics teachers and textbooks. My sense is that most ASA members, perhaps especially those of a theoretical rather than applied bent, need to "unlearn" more than they realize. Prime example: most still think it is obligatory or appropriate to specify alpha in doing statistical tests, the belated recent ASA statement (and much literature preceding it) on the matter notwithstanding.

The only other society-sponsored process that, over time, helps with that re-education is the m.o. where editors get multiple (ideally never less than three) review on a ms, and then sends copies of all reviews, along with the decision letter, to each of the individual reviewers. Often each of the multiple reviewers get to see via that process: 1) ms problems they overlooked, 2) references to literature they did not know about,  3) inappropriate recommendations from other reviewers, and 4) inappropriate recommendations they themselves made.

I do not think, however, that ASA community is a useful forum to deal with sexual harrassment issues, simply because I don't see those problems being any different within ASA or the broader community of statisticians than they are elsewhere in society. And I suspect everyone agrees that it would be very destructive to get involved in public discussion of the personal behavior or misbehavior of particular ASA members. Presumably the moderator would not allow that. 

Where ASA members could make a much larger contribution than they do now, would be the public outing of all those journalists, scientists, editorialists and organizations who, often deliberately, put out misleading pieces, even absolute falsehoods, about what the various types of raw or semi-raw "disparity" data show and what policies society should implementaccordingly. Both the popular and scientific literature dealing with racial or gender disparities in health statistics, university faculties, traffic stops, etc. is rife with heavily politicized, statistically bogus conclusions on such matters. And ASA members and publications have not always been blameless. Ok, best I stop here....!


------------------------------
Stuart Hurlbert
Emeritus Professor of Biology
San Diego State University
------------------------------

thank you very much all of you who kindly took the time to respond to my message!  I am quite impressed by ASA Community and will give some serious thought to setting up something along these lines for the International Biometric Society.  

It seems that many of you think the Community is a terrific place to ask questions and air opinions.   But it also seems that quite a few of you are nervous about this format as a place to discuss sensitive topics like harassment.  I think I agree.  I have seen some sites in the machine learning world where it all degenerates quite quickly.

Happy holidays! 
Louise

------------------------------
Louise Ryan
Biostatistics
University of Technology Sydney
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-20-2017 18:24
From: Louise Ryan
Subject: Its challenging to get good communication happening!

A number of things have been prompting me lately to think about what we can do to get better communication going among the members, especially the young one, of our professional societies.  One prompter is the fact that my stint as President of the International Biometric Society starts on January 1st!   Another is the recent flurry of communications regarding the unpleasant and unwelcome experiences of a young female statistician being harassed at professional conferences and online by senior male colleagues who should know better.  It seems to me that finding effective ways to communicate better so that concerns can be aired effectively would be a great start.   I am curious how fellow ASA members find the ASA Community in terms of being an effective communication channel.  Do you read posts often?  do you post?  Do you find the content useful?  I'd love to hear your thoughts (and I am very curious about what will happen after I submit this post!).   Basically I am doing a little experiment here.

------------------------------
Louise Ryan
Longstanding ASA Member
Now at University of Technology Sydney
------------------------------

Original Message------

thank you very much all of you who kindly took the time to respond to my message!  I am quite impressed by ASA Community and will give some serious thought to setting up something along these lines for the International Biometric Society.  

It seems that many of you think the Community is a terrific place to ask questions and air opinions.   But it also seems that quite a few of you are nervous about this format as a place to discuss sensitive topics like harassment.  I think I agree.  I have seen some sites in the machine learning world where it all degenerates quite quickly.

Happy holidays! 
Louise

------------------------------
Louise Ryan
Biostatistics
University of Technology Sydney
------------------------------

Congratulations about your new position. What I hear you asking is: "How do I keep open channels in a world where someone can write a low-visibility blog on personal events, have it reposted on an influential blog and then it hits the mainstream business media?" (I will be happy to give details off-line about the incident to anyone who cares.)  Why didn't the blogger just go to the conference organizer with her complaints?  I don't think personal issues and violations of rules and policy belong on a discussion forum.  But in a social media world that doesn't value discretion, all you can do is try your best.

 

Organizers of conferences should have a code of conduct (I believe ASA events do have one.) that applies to all participants, including vendors and sponsors. The front desk staff should have a procedure for assuring that any on-site concerns are addressed. No attendee from a corporate sponsor organization should intimidate other attendees because of financial control or influence. This also applies to recruiters.

 

The great thing about ASA is that I can pick up the phone and talk to the terrific staff. I did have a customer service problem with a recommended vendor this year and they took account of my concern. Given that IBS is a smaller, international organization, one way is to have a representative, not a board member, in each country act as a confidential contact point. That person should speak the main language of the country. Also discussions boards should be available in local languages.

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Georgette Asherman
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-21-2017 18:15
From: Louise Ryan
Subject: Its challenging to get good communication happening!

thank you very much all of you who kindly took the time to respond to my message!  I am quite impressed by ASA Community and will give some serious thought to setting up something along these lines for the International Biometric Society.

It seems that many of you think the Community is a terrific place to ask questions and air opinions.   But it also seems that quite a few of you are nervous about this format as a place to discuss sensitive topics like harassment.  I think I agree.  I have seen some sites in the machine learning world where it all degenerates quite quickly.

Happy holidays!
Louise

------------------------------
Louise Ryan
Biostatistics
University of Technology Sydney

Original Message:
Sent: 12-20-2017 18:24
From: Louise Ryan
Subject: Its challenging to get good communication happening!

A number of things have been prompting me lately to think about what we can do to get better communication going among the members, especially the young one, of our professional societies.  One prompter is the fact that my stint as President of the International Biometric Society starts on January 1st!   Another is the recent flurry of communications regarding the unpleasant and unwelcome experiences of a young female statistician being harassed at professional conferences and online by senior male colleagues who should know better.  It seems to me that finding effective ways to communicate better so that concerns can be aired effectively would be a great start.   I am curious how fellow ASA members find the ASA Community in terms of being an effective communication channel.  Do you read posts often?  do you post?  Do you find the content useful?  I'd love to hear your thoughts (and I am very curious about what will happen after I submit this post!).   Basically I am doing a little experiment here.

------------------------------
Louise Ryan
Longstanding ASA Member
Now at University of Technology Sydney
------------------------------

Louise,

I read  the posts from this group daily (the titles mainly), and read whole postings for certain topics. This is my first time actually writing here, and I also agree this communccation tool could work in other contexts. (I am also a member of the Communications Committee of the International Biometric Society, and think it is a terrific idea to get the opinions of our colleagues at the ASA about this).

Best, Raúl

------------------------------
Raul Macchiavelli, PhD
College of Agric. Sciences- Univ of Puerto Rico
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-20-2017 18:24
From: Louise Ryan
Subject: Its challenging to get good communication happening!

A number of things have been prompting me lately to think about what we can do to get better communication going among the members, especially the young one, of our professional societies.  One prompter is the fact that my stint as President of the International Biometric Society starts on January 1st!   Another is the recent flurry of communications regarding the unpleasant and unwelcome experiences of a young female statistician being harassed at professional conferences and online by senior male colleagues who should know better.  It seems to me that finding effective ways to communicate better so that concerns can be aired effectively would be a great start.   I am curious how fellow ASA members find the ASA Community in terms of being an effective communication channel.  Do you read posts often?  do you post?  Do you find the content useful?  I'd love to hear your thoughts (and I am very curious about what will happen after I submit this post!).   Basically I am doing a little experiment here.

------------------------------
Louise Ryan
Longstanding ASA Member
Now at University of Technology Sydney
------------------------------

Louise,  Wow, it's been a while since we communicated.  Congratulations on  you new position.  You will be assuming the presidency of IBS just as my term as president of ASA comes to an end.   I agree with you 100% about the importance of communication.   But, for the sake of clarity, the title you chose for the subject initially threw me.  I have spent a considerable part of my presidential year giving talks on statistical communication, frequently invoking my mantra, "It's Not What We Said, It's Not What They Heard, It's What They Say They Heard".    This of course relates to communications between statisticians and non-statisticians such as program managers, policy analysts, economists, lawyers, subject matter experts, etc.   Your direction is a different perspective considering the communications link among ourselves.  

To this end, I do read the ASA community pages, but of course, as ASA president I get paid to do that....well, of course I don't actually get paid at all, but I do feel compelled to take the pulse of the community.  I agree with several of the comments that this forum is good for discussing technical matters, but not the place for discussion of subjects such as sexual harassment.   I don't know if you are aware that just last month, the ASA Board approved the establishment of a new task force on "Sexual Harassment and Assault". While this task force is just in the initial stages of selecting members, I think it will provide guidance on this topic, and would be a more appropriate place for discussions on harassment than the ASA community page.

Barry Nussbaum

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Barry Nussbaum
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-20-2017 18:24
From: Louise Ryan
Subject: Its challenging to get good communication happening!

A number of things have been prompting me lately to think about what we can do to get better communication going among the members, especially the young one, of our professional societies.  One prompter is the fact that my stint as President of the International Biometric Society starts on January 1st!   Another is the recent flurry of communications regarding the unpleasant and unwelcome experiences of a young female statistician being harassed at professional conferences and online by senior male colleagues who should know better.  It seems to me that finding effective ways to communicate better so that concerns can be aired effectively would be a great start.   I am curious how fellow ASA members find the ASA Community in terms of being an effective communication channel.  Do you read posts often?  do you post?  Do you find the content useful?  I'd love to hear your thoughts (and I am very curious about what will happen after I submit this post!).   Basically I am doing a little experiment here.

------------------------------
Louise Ryan
Longstanding ASA Member
Now at University of Technology Sydney
------------------------------