Robert Goldman

In 2010 the faculty at Simmons College voted to approve a new major in biostatistics. The proposal for the new major passed easily enough, but some faculty expressed concern about the “recent proliferation of new majors.” Indeed, our dean was skeptical about the new major. I seem to recall a bet involving her buying me dinner if we had more than six new majors in three years. I won the bet but thought it prudent not to remind the dean of its existence.

With the benefit of hindsight, a major in either statistics or biostatistics seems almost inevitable given the growing awareness of the importance of the subject, but, in truth, the new major happened only with the enthusiastic support and fair-mindedness of my colleagues.

The growth of statistics at Simmons over the past 30-odd years has largely mirrored the blossoming of the subject both within and beyond academe. In the early 1980s the mathematics department offered two sections (of 25 students) of introductory applied statistics and five of introductory calculus each semester. There were no other statistics courses with the exception of the standard year-long sequence of probability theory and mathematical statistics. Toward the end of the 1980s, I introduced a second-level applied statistics course that focused mainly on regression. When I think back on that course, what comes to mind is the constant worry that it would be canceled for lack of students.

I recall a department meeting in the early 1980s in which I suggested that mathematics majors would benefit by taking a data analysis course in addition to the probability and mathematical statistics sequence. The suggestion was greeted with stony silence. The irony was that, even back then, at least half of our mathematics majors were eventually ending up in graduate statistics programs. At another meeting, I suggested that we change the name of the department from mathematics to mathematics and statistics. That suggestion also went nowhere—though my colleagues were later willing to absorb the computer science faculty and name into our department.

At about the same time I recall chatting with the pre-med adviser at lunch. I suggested that it might be a good idea, for pre-med students to take some statistics. She wasn’t hostile to the idea but didn’t really see the point. It struck me that I might as well have been suggesting that these students be required to take a course in art history!

Today, the computer scientists have left us; “we” are now the mathematics and statistics department, and mathematics majors are required to take introductory statistics. In the 2014–15 academic year, we are offering six sections of introductory applied statistics and two sections of introductory calculus per semester.

Many factors local to Simmons have provided fertile ground for a biostatistics major. As the only PhD statistician in a department with five PhD mathematicians, I’ve found that advocating for statistics has involved a balance between being aggressive and raising issues on the one hand, and being patient on the other. My colleagues, while naturally protective of the mathematics major, have been open to change when faced with evidence from other schools. Simmons was one of the first schools to adopt Minitab labs in the late 1970s. For the past 18 years, I have helped to organize the annual New England Isolated Statisticians Meeting. These meetings have been invaluable for tracking innovations in pedagogy and course content, but also for advice on how to finesse political issues within sometimes indifferent departments.

Simmons was founded in 1899 with a bequest from John Simmons, a Boston businessman who had the revolutionary idea that “women should be able to earn independent livelihoods and lead meaningful lives.” At the undergraduate level, Simmons is still all female, though it offers co-ed graduate programs. For young women, Simmons offers an education that blends the liberal arts and professions. This focus on the practical meant that even before the biostatistics major came along, mathematics majors and sympathizers gravitated toward graduate programs in statistics.

Historically, the subject-matter departments at Simmons have been content to allow the mathematics department to offer the introductory applied statistics courses. This has given us the flexibility to update syllabi, software, and staffing as circumstances, both inside and beyond the college, dictate.

At both the undergraduate and graduate levels, Simmons has always had strong health-related programs—physical therapy, nursing, nutrition, and health care administration. Until quite recently, these programs recommended an introductory applied statistics course for their graduates but did not require them. In recent years, the credential levels for entry into these professions have been raised, and younger faculty, more comfortable with and skilled in statistics, have joined the faculty. Now all these programs require statistics. New undergraduate programs in social work, public health, and environmental science all require a statistics course as well.

What is most heartening is that these departments and others at the college that require statistics have been willing to encourage their students who have had statistics in high school—particularly advanced placement statistics—to meet their statistics requirement by taking an intermediate-level applied statistics course at Simmons. Some faculty in these departments actually encourage their abler students to double-major in biostatistics!

Planning for some kind of statistics major began in 2008. The choice of biostatistics rather than statistics as the name and focus of the major was not easy. On the one hand, the huge number of students at Simmons majoring in health-related fields argued strongly for biostatistics. On the other hand, the fear was that the name biostatistics would discourage students in non-health fields such as economics, management, and political science from considering the major. A deciding factor in favor of biostatistics was the location of Simmons in the middle of the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, perhaps the most important concentration of medical institutions in the country.

The mathematics and statistics department approved the new major in biostatistics. We were assured by the college’s curriculum committee that they and the faculty were unlikely to raise any serious objection to the major. We shared our proposal with faculty in closely related departments. Perhaps we should not have been surprised, but we were, when the biology faculty pointed out that a biostatistics major surely should include at least two biology courses! We found the logic of this suggestion unassailable—especially since it allowed us to recommend that students choose epidemiology as one of the two courses.

As of the spring of 2015, we have somewhere between 15 and 18 majors. The exact number is difficult to pin down because some students delay declaring a major. Many double major with programs such as computer science, public health, biology, and mathematics. We have between 20 and 25 minors in biostatistics.

Simmons is part of the Colleges of the Fenway consortium, which includes Emmanuel College, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (also known as MCPHS University), and Wheelock College. On balance, this collaboration has benefited the mathematics and statistics department at Simmons by bringing in students from the other schools. Simmons and Emmanuel, our immediate neighbor, coordinate the scheduling of our courses; indeed, one of the required biostatistics courses (SAS Programming) is taught at Emmanuel.

Here are the details of the Simmons biostatistics major:

Students graduating with a major in biostatistics must also take two courses in biology. One must be BIOL 104, BIOL 113, or BIOL 123. The other should be at the 200 or 300 level. We recommend but do not insist that students take BIOL 346, Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases. It is worth pointing out that many if not most of our majors come to Simmons with credit for Calculus I and II and/or Introductory Statistics.

The mathematics prerequisites for the biostatistics major are similar to those at the (few) other schools that offer an undergraduate major in biostatistics. However, we are not able to offer the range of electives available in the large departments at the University of Scranton, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Brigham Young. To address this problem, we have recently added the course Math 391, Special Topics in Statistics, which will be offered for the first time in the 2015–2016 academic year. A recent preliminary canvass of our juniors indicated a lot of interest in Bayesian methods, and so that may be our focus.

Our majors are required to complete eight hours of independent study, and almost all satisfy this requirement by doing an internship at a local medical institution. We foolishly had not fully anticipated that if the biostatistics major became successful we would need to find more internship opportunities. Happily, our students have proved to be our best ambassadors, and the sponsor of a successful internship is likely to sponsor another Simmons student.

The minor in biostatistics consists of:

Now that the biostatistics major and minor are in place, I would like to persuade the department to change the suffix on courses in statistics from MATH to STAT. This is proving a more difficult battle than I anticipated. The argument against the change seems to be that there are too few statistics courses to make the change, and, in any case, what do we do with probability theory?

Even as I was advocating for a biostatistics/statistics major, I was very conscious of the concern my colleagues had about its possible effect on the mathematics major, but so far the evidence suggests that the biostatistics major has had no negative effect. To the contrary, even with this new option, many quantitative students prefer other mathematical sciences (which at Simmons includes mathematics, financial mathematics, mathematics/education, and mathematics/economics). In fact, biostatistics students help to populate the mathematics courses required for the major.

We are getting many first-year students at Simmons who enjoyed a statistics course in high school. It is exciting to be able to offer these students, as well as those who discover the subject at Simmons, the knowledge that they can major in biostatistics.

Staffing for the major is an ongoing concern. Besides myself, there is one other faculty member with the interest and background to teach the probability and mathematical statistics sequence, but our students see me (too much) in the applied courses. Currently, too many sections of our introductory applied course are taught by adjuncts. We need another statistician! The administration is aware of our need and has promised…but we have learned to not hold our breath.

Our recent graduates have tended to go on to graduate school, usually in biostatistics or statistics, but also in public health, economics, and management. My sense is that some of them would have preferred to get some work experience in statistics before investing in graduate school, but even here in Boston it is difficult to find meaningful jobs with just a bachelor’s degree.

This report is written from the perspective of a statistician. I asked the chair of the mathematics and statistics department, Margaret Menzin, if she would provide a brief comment on the creation and effect of the new major. She was kind enough to do so, and I include it here:

Initially the very ‘pure’ mathematicians [in the department] were skeptical of starting a program in biostatistics (or of devoting more resources to our statistical offerings.) Gradually we came to see statistics/biostatistics as a separate but closely related discipline, and that the biostatistics and mathematics majors do, in fact, reinforce each other. Many of our biostatistics majors come from the natural sciences, rather than from mathematics, and so add to our student cohort. Having two vibrant majors has clearly increased our presence on our campus.

About the Author

Robert Goldman has been teaching biostatistics and research methods at Simmons for more years than he cares to remember. He has developed and taught a variety of quantitative courses online for more than 10 years, and recently introduced one of the first undergraduate majors in biostatistics in the country. Professor Goldman’s scholarly interests are predominantly in the area of statistics pedagogy. He has authored or co-authored numerous articles on the subject. He has also written a statistics textbook and a text on statistical software. He is a former president of the Boston Chapter of the American Statistical Association.

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