Dalene Stangl: We’ll start with a brief introduction of each panelist.

Lynne Billard earned her PhD in 1969 from the University of New South Wales. She is a professor at the University of Georgia, known for her statistics research leadership and advocacy of women in science. She joined the University of Georgia as head of the department of statistics and computer science. She was named a university professor in 1992. She has served as president of the American Statistical Association and the International Biometric Society. From 1988 to 2004, she served as principal investigator for Pathways to the Future, an annual workshop focused on mentoring women in all fields of science and scientific research. In 2011, she received the 10th annual Janet Norwood Award for outstanding achievement by a woman in the statistical sciences. In 2013, she was awarded the Florence Nightingale David Award for exemplary contributions to education, science, and public service. She recieved the 1999 Wilk’s Award for her research accomplishments. She is a Fellow of ASA, IMS, AAAS, RSS and an elected member of ISI.

Mary Ellen Bock earned her PhD in mathematics in 1974 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a professor in the department of statistics at Purdue University and was formerly its head for 15 years beginning in 1995. In addition, she is a former president of the ASA, former chair of the Statistics Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and a former program director of statistics at the National Science Foundation. She is a Fellow of AAAS, ASA, and Institute of Mathematical Statistics. She has also served as presidential advocate for Purdue’s NSF ADVANCE grant.

Sally Morton earned her PhD in 1990 from Stanford. She is professor and chair of the department of biostatistics in the graduate school of public health and directs the Comparative Effectiveness Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh. She holds secondary appointments in the Clinical and Translational Science Institute and the department of statistics. Previously, she was vice president of statistics and epidemiology at RTI International. She spent the first part of her career at the Rand Corporation, where she was head of the statistics group and held the Rand Endowed Chair in Statistics. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on National Statistics and chair-elect of the Statistics Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was the 2009 president of the American Statistical Association. She is a Fellow of the ASA and AAAS and an elected member of the Society for Research Synthesis Methodology. She recently received the Craig Award for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring at the Graduate School of Public Health.

Marie Davidian earned her PhD in 1987 at The University of North Carolina. She is William Neil Reynolds Professor of Statistics at North Carolina State University. She’s known for her analysis of longitudinal data, especially nonlinear mixed effects models, methods for handling missing and mismeasured data, methods for analysis of clinical trials in observational studies including approaches for drawing causal inferences, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics analysis combining mechanistic mathematical and statistical modeling of disease progression to design treatment strategies in clinical trials, and statistical methods for estimating optimal treatment strategies from data. In addition to her position at NCSU, she is an adjunct professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics at Duke University and works with the Duke Clinical Research Institute, collaborating with clinicians and biostatisticians on problems in cardiovascular disease research. She coauthored the book Nonlinear Models for Repeated Measurement Data and coedited the book Longitudinal Data Analysis, a handbook of modern statistical methods. She served as the president of the ASA in 2013.

Jessica Utts, 2016 ASA president, earned her PhD in 1978 from Penn State. She’s professor and chair of the department of statistics at the University of California, Irvine. She previously was professor at the University of California, Davis, where she also held two administrative roles at various times, Associate Vice Provost for University Outreach and director of the Campus Wide Honors Program. Utts is a Fellow of the ASA, IMS, AAAS, and Association for Psychological Science. She has served as president of the Caucus for Women in Statistics and WNAR and chair of the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies. Her area of statistical expertise includes statistics education and literacy and applications in statistics to a variety of disciplines, most notably parapsychology. She has appeared on numerous television shows to discuss her work, including Larry King Live and CNN News. While at UC Davis, she was co-PI on a grant from the Sloan Foundation, titled “Model Project: Enhancing the Educational Environment and Opportunities for Women in Engineering, Math, and Science,” which created multiple programs for STEM women students and faculty, some of which are still going on at UC Davis.

Dalene Stangl: Now, on to the first question. Each of you has had a career juggling teaching, research, administration, and service and have contributions spanning academics, industry, and government. What has motivated and enabled this breadth of contributions in so many dimensions?

Marie Davidian: It never occurred to me do otherwise. When I got my PhD and took on an academic position. I was, of course, apprehensive, thinking can I really do this? Can I do research? I always loved teaching. I taught extensively as a graduate student, and so it never dawned on me not to focus on my teaching, and my research career obviously started progressing. And as it did, I always did a lot of collaborative work. That was part of my position, to work with scientists in Agriculture and Life Sciences. And it gave me the thirst to know more about science and about society than just through narrow focus on my statistical research. One of the ways I saw to do that, inspired by my senior colleagues, was to get into professional service, and early on I was asked to run for president of the local ASA chapter here in North Carolina. I won, not surprisingly, because I don’t think I had anyone running against me. But that really started it for me. I can’t imagine not being involved in a broader way in my discipline and, by extension, other disciplines. So, for me, it just evolved that way. I never really thought to focus on one particular aspect. And I think for all of you out there, particularly those starting your careers, I think professional service is a rewarding and fulfilling activity. Whether ASA, ENAR, WNAR, or another group, it’s a way to support our discipline and support so many things that our societies and associations do to advocate for our disciplines. You meet so many interesting people you would not meet otherwise.

Sally Morton: As you heard from my introduction, I started my career in industry at the RAND Corporation and I worked for about 20 years in public policy institutions: RAND and then RTI. So I had a different career path than the other women here. I became a statistician to change the world, and I thought that I could do so by being involved in policy. I know it sounds very grandiose, but it was my motivation. I think it’s really important to be self-aware about what your strengths are, and I knew early on that my strengths were communication, organization, and working at the nexus between statisticians and nonstatisticians. So I decided to choose a career that I could maximize and utilize those strengths best. So don’t be pigeonholed. I know when we are in graduate school, we see the academic career and it’s what our professors know best, but allow yourself to look at other opportunities. There are a lot of sessions here today that talk about other types of careers. Go where you are going to be able to have the most impact and where you’ll be most happy. If you’re most happy that’s where you’ll be most productive.

I think it’s also important to remember to compromise. I’ll tell a little story. When I was ASA president, I was the single mother of a five-year-old and I knew that I had to compartmentalize my presidential duties. So I decided that, on Saturdays, I would do ASA work, and I told the ASA that. During the week, I would triage the email and beat that back on the ASA front, but on Saturdays, I hired a babysitter from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. I dedicated those 10 hours to the ASA. The ASA knew this. The executive director, Ron Wasserstein, was very amenable and he would talk to me on the phone on Saturday. So he had to adjust his schedule, as well. Sunday was my day with my daughter. That was our day, and I didn’t touch work that day. I knew that I had to compromise, and I couldn’t give as much as I might want to the ASA presidency, but that was what I had to do. I also was very clear with the ASA that I could not travel that much. I think I made 26 trips when I was president, which sounds like a lot, but it’s not a lot compared to what some of the other presidents did. I happen to know that Marie scheduled far more than that. I told the ASA when they asked me to run, that travel, particularly international, was not something I could do given my home situation. So realize you are not going to be perfect at everything, and that’s okay. Make those compromises, compartmentalize. At least for me, that has been the way that I can make peace between my professional responsibilities and my personal ones.

Jessica Utts: My answer is similar to Marie’s. I started teaching in graduate school, and I loved teaching. My focus has been on statistics education for most of my career. I knew research was part of the job. It was never a real passion of mine. That’s one reason I did some of other things I’ve done, such as administration, being active in professional societies, and so on. But I’m probably not a good person to answer this question in the form of advice to the rest of you, because I ignored most of the advice I got and said yes to most things I was asked to do, even as an assistant professor. My first administrative job was right after I got tenure. And that was being director of the women’s studies program at [UC] Davis. I had no business doing that, but I got asked to do it and it sounded like fun. I think what motivated me to do these things is that I get bored easily, so when these unsolicited things came along I said yes fairly readily to most in spite of advice to the contrary. So my advice on that score would be that when you do get asked to do something, if it sounds like fun for you, seriously consider it. If you’re just responding because it felt good to be asked, seriously consider saying “no.” Look for the opportunities and consider each one very carefully. Remember that every time you agree to do something you’re taking time away from something else, so make sure the things you’re going to do are things you think you will really enjoy doing.

Dalene Stangl: Suppose you are writing a letter to your younger self. What would be a few of the themes in that letter?

Mary Ellen Bock: I will read my letter to myself.

Dear Mary Ellen,

So you want to be a professor. You might think that because you are going into higher ed, you don’t need to pay attention to the business world. Surprise! Higher ed is a business … and you do need to pay attention to the business aspect. At least skim the headlines of the Chronicle of Higher Education. I realize you’re popping out of a PhD program with no business experience or management training in 1974 now, but you can learn. For instance, you will go to Purdue University and meet a statistics graduate student named Jing Shyr who will also receive no experience in business in her doctoral program. But she will prosper in the business world and go on to be a senior vice president at SPSS and then chief statistician at IBM. So there is hope, even for you, to learn something about the business you will be in.

Now I realize, Mary Ellen, that you may think that the whole higher ed business issue will be above your pay grade as a professor. But professors sometimes make important decisions in consensus for their schools and your voice about the potential business consequences for different actions can be vital. Your vote counts! Furthermore, you will eventually be a department head and then understanding higher ed also as a business will be critical. (I know that you do not think department heads or deans or provosts are also business managers, but they are.)

It will be important to pay attention to business trends in higher ed because it will affect you as a professor in many ways. For instance, in 2013, financial trends in the business of higher ed will be negative. Enrollment from the pool of U.S. undergrads will be flat or declining for the following 10 years. State legislators will have chopped public university budgets drastically. NSF and NIH will have cut back on research funding. The government will be investigating whether or not the payoff for a college degree was worth the loans the student took out to get the degree. But don’t worry. Higher ed is not like the buggy whip business, which fell precipitously after the invention of the automobile. But higher ed will need to change to meet the financial crises. For instance, small departments may be dropped or folded into other departments for the sake of efficiency. But fortunately for you, your field of statistics will have enormous growth potential and opportunities at that time because of Big Data. Successful statistics departments will step up to the plate and meet the new demand for “analytics” and “data science” and they will cooperate with computer science departments. They will ramp up the undergrad stat major and the professional master’s degree and online offerings. They will have a host of new undergraduate students and a richer model for the department that values professors who specialize in statistics education and/or teaching. This will mean growth for statistics departments … think in terms of the size of the mathematics department. (Many students will need statistics as much as, if not more than, calculus in their careers.) But you will be at Purdue Statistics in 2013 and, lucky you, Rebecca Doerge will be the head! She will be way ahead of these trends and forging new research opportunities as well.

Goodbye and good luck,

Mary Ellen.

P.S. You will need to know a lot more computer science than you imagine. Another thing: Remember how they told you to never look at the data without a fully formed hypothesis? There will be this phenomenon called “data mining.” I’ll leave that for you to discover.

Dalene Stangl: Question three needs a little prep work. In 2009, there was an article in Nature called “Unmasking the Imposter,” and the subtitle of it was “Feelings of inadequacy in one’s field sometimes plague even the most accomplished scientists, especially women.” The example they used was a woman, Cherry Murray, and the article starts, “It usually happens to Cherry Murray when she’s about to write a paper or give a talk on a new finding or discovery. The thoughts come unbidden hammering inside the physicist’s head. I can’t do this. I haven’t done enough experiments. I haven’t got enough data. I can’t write the paper well enough yet, or give the talk. These aren’t the routine self-doubts of a young researcher. Murray is Principle Associate Director for Science and Technology at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and President of the American Physical Society. On July 1 [2014], she’ll become the dean of Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Referring to her work she says, ‘I have to tell myself this doesn’t have to be perfect.’ When Murray described an overwhelming sense of not being good enough for her job, despite much evidence to the contrary, this was identified more than 30 years ago by two clinical psychologists who dubbed it ‘the imposter phenomenon.’ In their paper, they describe women who, despite reaching significant intellectual milestones ranging from advanced degrees to professional work, cannot internalize their successes or convince themselves that they really deserve it.”

Have you ever felt the imposter syndrome, and if so how did you navigate your way through it? And we’re going to start with Sally Morton on this one.

Sally Morton: I definitely feel the imposter syndrome sitting up here. I definitely felt it when I got that phone call from the ASA, “will you run for ASA president?” I was convinced they thought I was Sallie Keller. It turns out Sallie Keller was actually president at the time, so I convinced myself that they didn’t actually think I was Sallie Keller. So I think the first thing is to recognize the problem.

I’m sure many of you feel the syndrome. Recognize that it exists and, as Dalene has shared with us, there’s research that shows it does exist. The thing I do to try to combat it is have a very good mentor. I have colleagues who help me see my successes.

If in conversation you feel down about yourself, walk away, change the conversation. Saying “How about those Steelers?” always works in Pittsburgh. Focus on what you’ve achieved, not what you haven’t. That’s very important. Set the bar realistically—what you can do. It is important to know where you can get better, and all of us can improve. But definitely see what you have achieved.

I think it’s very important to take chances. Don’t let that syndrome pressure you into not taking risks. Running for ASA president, whoa, what if I lost? Worse yet, what if I won? In the spring of my presidential year, I thought about writing the ASA presidential speech for about two weeks. Could I say, “I have the flu?” I thought. “No, you really have to do this.” So the first thing I did, I bought my shoes. I did. I’m not kidding. I’m 5′ 11”, but I feel a whole lot better when I’m 6′ 2”, so I went out and got those heels. I thought, “I got the shoes, I’m ready to write the talk.” So do what you need to do.

Part of the purpose of this conference is to give us a network, people that you can turn to when you go back to your university or to your job. Turn to those other women to both get and give support. That’s what we’re trying to do here. That’s the empowerment Dalene has been speaking to us about.

Marie Davidian: Well, I got that same phone call, and I reacted exactly as Sally did. Me? Really? I’m remembering back to when I was a graduate student at Chapel Hill Statistics, where I got my degree. There was a qualifying exam with three parts on three separate days, and when the results came out for my class of 12, I was the only person to pass all three. And my first reaction was there must be some mistake. This can’t be true. And I looked at my fellow students and I couldn’t believe it. I was the one? Then I thought about it. I thought about how I studied very diligently all summer and I had done well in my classes. I started to think, “Maybe it is really true.” And it was.

It dawned on me then I had always felt the imposter thing, always getting straight As in high school. It dawned on me then—wow, I think I can do this. I was very intimidated by being in this department of world-famous faculty members. I could never measure up. At that one instance when I told myself, “wow that really was me,” I got the strength to get over that imposter syndrome. I think it carried me through.

I had certainly had many instances, as did Sally, where I questioned, and certainly getting that call asking me to run for ASA president was one of them. But I’ve always looked at what I am good at and thought, “Yes, you can do this.” There is a basis for why somebody is saying, “Yes, you are a good teacher.” “Yes, we think highly enough of you to ask you to run for ASA president.”

My advice to you is many of the same things Sally has said. Believe in yourself and recognize your strengths and don’t be shy about believing. I was very, very lucky to have that experience.

Lynne Billard: I want to react to your wanting to be the 6’2” instead of 5’11” [Sally]. Five-eleven is a good height. There are studies that show that where women have succeeded relative to men, it’s been tall ones that stood out first. So anyway, when I got that phone call, I actually didn’t even know how candidates were selected and being selected to run on the ballot was the furthest thing from my mind. I thought this was just another phone call where I was being asked to recommend people for committee membership. Eventually, they said, “No, no, no, you don’t understand.” I didn’t understand at all, and I actually said I would have to think about it, because I just had been elected international representative for IBS, International Biometrics Society. I said I am committed to that. If elected, I don’t want one position compromised by the other. They said, “Oh, we’ve already thought about that and we think you can do it.” I said I still want to think about it. So I thought about it for a few days, and then said yes I would run.

Anyhow, I think that we all think of ourselves as an imposter. I certainly do. Even though, like Marie, I might have the scholastic records that show that I am not an imposter. I think this is a common problem for women and not just for various positions, but men will put themselves forward for positions even if they’re not ready. They say, “Well, I’ll give it a shot. I’ll try. I want to get considered for promotion this year. Maybe it’s a little early, but I want to try.” The woman perhaps should have tried last year, but she thought, “Maybe I’m not ready, yet. Let’s wait another year.” We want to be 100% sure we can do whatever it is, and the men want to be 60% sure. But it’s real, so recognize it in ourselves when we see men around us going for things and we feel just as good as they are, well say, “Okay, I’ll have a go at whatever it is.” We don’t help ourselves by sitting back and saying I’m not ready yet.

Jessica Utts: I really like this question, because it was great relief when I heard about the imposter syndrome. The way it was presented was that you fear that you’re going to get found out. You’re not as good as people think you are. It differs from low self-esteem. This is an important point: Low self-esteem is boosted when you have a success, but the imposter syndrome is made worse, because “Oh, my God, now they’re really going find out.” So it just was a big help to me to hear about this and to know that many women suffer from this.

The final straw was when I was visiting another university where one of the people on the faculty, he might have been the chair at the time, was the person I went to graduate school with who I thought was the smartest guy in our class. He said, “Oh, my God, I kept worrying that they’re going to find out I wasn’t as smart as they thought I was.” I thought, “Wow, if even he felt this way, then obviously everybody must feel this way, because he really was smart.”

So I think just acknowledging that this exists is a big step toward navigating through it. Just be aware that it does exist and men have it as well, but as research has shown, not as strongly as women do. So you have to do a little mind twist and when you have a success to celebrate, celebrate it and don’t think, “Oh my, now they’re really going to find out.”

Dalene Stangl: The older I get, the more deeply I understand the adage, “Our greatest strengths are our greatest weaknesses.” What attribute is your greatest strength and greatest weaknesses, and give an example of when it was a strength and when it was a challenge.

Jessica Utts: This is certainly true. The attribute that meets this is that I absolutely hate conflict. And as a department chair or administer, in general, you just sometimes can’t avoid it, but what I’ve realized is that the way I handle this is I try to anticipate when conflict is going to arise and try to do something about it before it gets there. I might be better off in some situations if I just let it happen and let things go. For example, if I think there’s going be a controversial topic in a faculty meeting, I’ll go to individual faculty members in advance and try to talk through the issues with them. I don’t know if that’s such a good style for an administrator. It’s something that I have to do, because I really don’t like conflict.

A funny story in my research work is that my dislike of conflict has turned me into a Bayesian! As Dalene mentioned, I’ve done a lot of work in statistics and parapsychology. I don’t know if everyone knows what that is, but it’s basically studying psychic abilities. I became convinced there is really something there. I did a report for Congress in which I made that statement, so of course it’s been very controversial. What I love about Bayesian statistics is we can agree to disagree, because we can all use our priors and update our belief accordingly. I now realize that if you have a strong prior against the notion of parapsychology (0% chance it exists), then no amount of data is going to convince you. So that’s one way that this weakness, hating conflict, became a research strength. I’ve started publishing now using Bayesian methods in this field.

Marie Davidian: I’m a perfectionist. That can be a wonderful thing and that can be a paralyzing thing. So as a strength, it’s helped me throughout my career in writing research papers and writing grant applications. I pay extraordinary attention to the details. I want to get it right. I want the writing to be perfect. I want my readers to be able to fully appreciate what I’m saying, with no ambiguity. That can be a very good thing for a research article or a competitive grant application, so in that sense my perfectionism has been a real advantage to me and is a strength.

On the other hand, in that same context, I can agonize over a sentence for an hour. I can become fixated on a paragraph and write and rewrite it over and over again. So here it can act like a paralyzing weakness. What I’ve done over the years, and I think it’s really helped me, is to just recognize it’s part of my character, nothing I can do about it. I can’t change myself. I can’t turn myself into my brother, who seems to be able to not see stacks of papers on his dining room table that would drive me out of my mind. I’ve recognized and come to terms with my perfectionism and I try to channel it when I recognize it’s going to be helpful. And when I realize that I am sitting there looking at a paragraph and I look up at the clock and say, “Wow, an hour just went by,” I have trained myself to the best of my ability to move on. I have to maybe go get a cup of coffee. Move away from it for a while. So that’s just an example of recognizing your own strengths and your own character and using it for the best.

Dalene Stangl: The theme of this conference is “Know Your Power,” so I ask each panelist to tell us about when and how it was that they came to know their power.

Jessica Utts: I thought a lot about this question, because I don’t feel like I know my power that much, but then I realized that when it happened to me was when I realized the value of networking. I was very, very fortunate that when I started at UC Davis there was a collection of women faculty members called “The Faculty Women’s Research Support Group.” There were so few of us on the faculty that all women on the faculty were invited, yet we met in someone’s home, in the evening once a month. One woman would present her research in a way that the rest of us could understand. What happened was I got to know women from all across campus quite well. We talked about things like the imposter syndrome. We talked about the problems with the administration. We talked about all kinds of things. Those networks still exist. One other woman who was in that group is now the vice provost at UC Davis and in charge of academic personnel. We all grew up moving through the ranks together. Eventually, the number of women on the faculty got too large to actually continue to do this in someone’s home, and it lost its momentum as more women joined the faculty. That networking and the things that we accomplished, that the men did not realize we were doing, was very, very powerful. So early in my career I learned power networking and the importance of getting to know other people from across your institution, your profession, your professional organizations, and so on.

Mary Ellen Bock: Like Jessica, I was not sure if this applied to me, but then I realized that I learned the power of advocacy when I went to be the program director of statistics at NSF in 1988. Let me explain. To seek resources for the statistics program, it is important to learn to enunciate the connections and value of the field to other program officers and to the division head since statistics was (and still is) one of several programs in the NSF Division of Mathematics. In academia, it is very good training for being a head or chair because you have learned to advocate for your department to other heads or chairs and to your dean or provost. It should not surprise you that a huge percentage of the NSF program directors in statistics go on to be chairs or heads of departments. (This was not necessarily true of other disciplinary programs.) For example, some of the other former NSF statistics program officers participating in this conference include Sallie Keller (dean at Rice University, provost at University of Waterloo) and Nancy Flournoy (chair at American University and chair at University of Missouri). I eventually became head of statistics at Purdue University and managed to double its size over a 15-year period, thanks to the advocacy skills I learned at NSF.

I have to add that going to NSF gives an incredible research perspective on what’s going on in all of science and engineering. You also often meet or learn about great individual researchers. There in 1988, I discovered that one of the biggest NSF supercomputer users was our keynote speaker at this conference, Grace Wahba. (This member of the National Academy of Science was Big Data before there was Big Data.) Coming from a place with so few women in science, it was an eye-opener to me to get to know other women scientists around the country through NSF. There I had the advantage of following Nancy Flournoy, who was the first woman statistics program director and who opened doors for many. Along with its other advantages, NSF experience offers the chance to learn strategies that can increase the participation of women and minorities, since it looks broadly across the country and gathers big picture data.

Lynne Billard: I never thought I had any power. Of course, my situation was a little bit different. I was the first woman department head my university ever had. This is in the 1980s so it predates everything today by 35 years. Even as ASA president, we hadn’t had an academic woman president since Gertrude Cox, 30 or 40 years earlier. So I never ever felt I had any power. I felt I had a job to do and felt I had to do a really good job. One of the things I did was I never wanted a dean or administrator to turn me down, so I waited until I could make them ready. Over time, I would be educating them about the need. I had priorities, but I had to work out which of my priorities was gettable now. So work at that constantly, and educate. You can’t go up to administrators or the vice president and say, “Give it to me just because I think it’s important.” Back up requests with data and logic. Be mathematicians. I think this is the place where I might tell a Janet Norwood story.

This was June of 1997. Congress was fighting sampling issues in the census. It had become a huge political battle. I was sitting in my office Friday afternoon in June when I got this phone call. Congress had enormous pressure to pass a bill that had a rider on forbidding any statistical procedure of any kind to be used in the upcoming census. So this is a big concern.

In ’97, I was past president and, in ’96, was president. This political battle had gone on for a while and I had set up a blue-ribbon panel to look at the issue. I was smart enough to ask Janet Norwood to chair that panel, because I knew she was respected by both sides of the aisle. She readily did that. Anyhow, I get this phone call. I put the phone down and started writing. Usually I take a long time to draft a letter, but within 15–20 minutes, I had that letter written. I went upstairs and gave it to the typist to type up and phoned Jon Kettenring, who was the president that year. I said, “Jon, we have to send this letter to Congress. You have to write it because you’re on point. They won’t care if it’s written by Billard or Kettenring, but they will care if it’s written by the president of the ASA.” Jon was hesitant. I said I would cosign it and get all the past presidents to cosign it. By three o’clock, that letter was typed and faxed to Jon. I had found all the past presidents and gotten all their fax numbers. Within a half hour or so, Jon came back and said okay. I faxed it to every past president, including the government ones, to let them know what was happening. By five o’clock—this is Friday in June—all but one had replied and said they would cosign it. That one was out of town and got back to me on Monday morning.

So I went up to the ASA office in Washington on Monday. I’m up there and printing it out on letterhead and get a copy of the blue-ribbon panel’s report. At about 4:30 p.m., I get this phone call at the ASA from Janet. She tracked me down. She said, “How are you going to do this?” We’re stuffing envelopes and we’re going to put it in the mail in the morning. She said that’ll be too late. We cancelled our dinner plans. The staff person knew of some wire service, and by 8:00 p.m., we had [the letter] on every congressman, every senator, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore’s desks.

By 8:30 p.m., we were getting phone calls wanting more information. By Tuesday, the bill was passed with the rider taken off. That’s the power. Talk about networking. Somehow Janet Norwood knew it would happen on Tuesday, and because she knew and acted, we had an impact on the census. We found our power.

Marie Davidian: I’ve already said this, but I will say it again: For me, mentoring my students has meant the world to me. When I see my students flourishing, progressing in their careers, taking on responsibilities and positions, that to me feels like power. I hope that I’ve helped their futures. That’s my number-one thing.

Sally Morton: I feel the same way Lynne did. I’m not sure I have power. In about 2008, I got a phone call from the Institute of Medicine and was asked if I could recommend someone to be on a committee, and for the first time ever actually said, “Well I’ll be on the committee. Here’s why I would be good for it.” I had never actually done that before, but I took that risk. It was a committee on health care reform. They needed someone with expertise in meta-analysis. It wasn’t such a stretch. I have some expertise in that area. I was on several subsequent committees and one of them actually affected the health care reform bill. There’s a section of the bill, about five pages of it, that established the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and any of you who know this policy know this institute. That came out of the Institute of Medicine Committee I served on. There were other voices calling for the establishment of that institute, but I sat in a room with the Democratic and Republican staffers who actually hammered out the section of the bill. I felt wonderful because I had had an impact on health care for the people of this nation. That was one point where I felt power. How that happened was fortuitous—in taking that risk, putting myself forward. So I would counsel you to take risks. You may fail, but that’s okay. In fact, if you don’t fail, you’re not taking enough risks. Do take those risks and put yourself forward.

Dalene Stangl: We have about another five minutes, so rarely in your life are you going to have the opportunity to have women of this caliber and this much knowledge on one stage, so I want to give you some time to ask questions to the panel.

Audience Member: I think some women hold back, because they worry that if they fail, that they will set other women back, not only themselves. Was that ever an element in your thinking, or were you able to dissuade someone else from thinking?

Sally Morton: I’ll say, early in my career, I was given several opportunities to serve on committees. I was even told the reason I had been given the opportunity is because I was a woman. When you get this type of opportunity, you think to yourself, “Should I, can I do it? Will I fail? Have I been given this only because I’m female?” Early on, I just decided, damn it, I was going take that opportunity. I was going to do the best job I could. I hoped to represent women well and also to further my career. So I think we all have those fears, but remember, 90% of the job is just showing up being prepared. We can all do it. Get out there would be my advice.

Audience Member: What advice do you have for non-PhD statisticians in advancement in our careers and profession and such?

Mary Ellen Bock: Know something about business. [Audience laughs] Academics need to know it, but you certainly need to know it, too. Usually your training in the department where you got your degree won’t include that. It’s the thing that you can bring to the table.

Audience Member: What in your career would you do over if you could?

Lynne Billard: That was on our original list, but we eliminated it. [Audience laughs] I actually think we all make mistakes. If we say we haven’t made mistakes, we’re lying. I’m not so sure we can admit to some mistakes. If men do that, they will say he’s being open and it’s okay. We still have a tough row to hoe.

Jessica Utts: One thing that I would have written in my letter to myself is, “Don’t worry so much.” I woke up one morning a few years after I got tenure and realized that the entire time I was going for tenure, I would wake up every morning worrying about it. Then a few months later, I realized I was waking up every morning thinking “What do I have to worry about today? I already have tenure.” Then I realized, oh, my goodness, I’m living my life with this theme of worrying about things. So my letter to myself would have said don’t worry so much.

Audience Member: Hi, I’m from Brown University and I’m a second-year assistant professor. So I am very junior. I guess I can see being second year as a strength, because people tend to be a little bit more forgiving when you are junior and make mistakes. Of course, it obviously means that being junior and less experienced can be a weakness. So I would like to ask what advice you would give to junior, less experienced female faculty.

Mary Ellen Bock: Go to a conference like this one.

Jessica Utts: I would just say one thing: Learn about your local culture. Every university has a different culture. You need to know what the rules are at your university. Ask a lot of questions about that.

Lynne Billard: Get your work done. We all want to be tenured if we are in academia. It’s not always the best thing for us. In the short term, if you get tenure and you’re not good researchers, some are happy they have a job. But we become very miserable if it’s not really for us. Academia isn’t for everybody. There are those of us who can be extremely happy in academia. But there are teachers, someone said that they just love to teach and they should be at a teaching institution, or in industry or in government. There is a place for every one of us. It’s not just research institutions for all of us. So build on your strengths. If you love research and are able to do it, make sure you do. When it comes to tenure time, if you spent extra time on teaching or extra time on service, you can say, “Well, I did it all.” I’ll say, “Well, that’s very nice. Thank you very much, but where’s the research?” You have to get it done.

Marie Davidian: Along those same lines, don’t worry—be happy. What I mean by that is that academia may not be for everyone. Even if it is for you, if you’re constantly worrying about your future, that’s not healthy. Try to have fun. If you are doing things you truly enjoy and love, you will be happy. That’s the foremost important thing. Pursue things that make you happy and enjoy.

Sally Morton: I’ll just add one thing: Find a mentor, get feedback from people early. Don’t wait. Sometimes people don’t want to give you bad news if things aren’t going right. So ask for it early so you can adjust.

Dalene Stangl: I want to end this session thanking the panel and everyone in the audience for being here. The panelists are women with enormous courage and strength. The older I get, the more I understand how much courage and toughness it takes to put yourself out there, to put forth your opinions, and to be strong and take the heat. So I’m in great admiration of these women for all the risks they have taken and the doors that they’ve opened for the rest of us. I also want to thank the audience for being here. You too have taken risks. Not everyone thought this conference was a good idea. Some of you came skeptical. Thanks for taking that risk. I believe this conference is a step toward understanding what we as individuals and we as a female culture bring to the table and is a step toward building a supportive community, so that we can all come to know our power.

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