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Transitional chair
Ken Koehler leads the Department of Statistics in its search for
new personnel.
- In the last five years, seven long-time faculty members in the Department
of Statistics have retired.
Over that same time period, another eight faculty members have resigned
- many senior level faculty.
That's the atmosphere that Kenneth Koehler, university professor of statistics,
stepped into when he became the interim chair of the department last October.
"We're in a transitional mode," Koehler said. "We have had
a lot of retirements and resignations in the last few years and we’re
making a transition from a senior-laden faculty to a much younger department.
"It's not an easy thing to do."
One of Koehler's tasks as the interim chair of the Department of Statistics
was coordinating filling four faculty positions for the start of the fall
semester.
"In the time I spent as interim chair I learned a lot of the duties
and responsibilities of the job," he said.
That's a good thing since effective July 1, Koehler is the permanent chair
of the Department of Statistics. He also serves in a dual role as director
of the Statistical Laboratory.
In his "new" job, Koehler will continue the transitional phases
of his department with an additional three to four faculty searches this
year.
" There are a number of positive things that can occur with this type
of transition," he said. "You bring in younger people that help
revitalize the department with new ideas."
Koehler says this year's new faculty in the Department of Statistics are
exceptional hires, with specializations in such areas as survey sampling,
nonparametric statistical modeling, spatial statistics and statistical computing.
" These are all areas we've been anxious to establish a new presence
in," Koehler said. "I think these people will go a long ways to
do just that."
Two of the four faculty members will enter Iowa State as assistant professors.
Koehler says that future faculty members will probably also be hired right
after they receive their Ph.D. degrees.
" There are a lot of job opportunities in statistics in government
and private industry," he said. "If a university doesn't get a
faculty member right after they finish their Ph.D., it's unlikely that they
will go into academics as a career."
The transition to a younger faculty has its downsides. Koehler expects a
temporary drop in productivity in grant writing among the newer faculty.
And while these faculty members can expect to advise master's students majoring
in statistics, it will be a few years before they are ready to advise Ph.D.
students.
" The full professors in the department will have to take on a bigger
role in the advising of the Ph.D. students," Koehler said.
" This has traditionally been a really friendly and cooperative department,'
he continued. "I think that spirit will continue as we go through this
transition. Part of my job is to help the new people develop and integrate
with the rest of the faculty."
Around LAS
August 25 to September 7, 2003
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