President's Column
Inger Fabris-Rotelli
March 2023
Goodness how is it March already! It definitely feels like post-COVID everything moves faster and we are always busy. My motto is always to fill your environment with what you enjoy to do. If you’ve worked closely with me you’ll know this I how I get through every day. I love academia and I love Statistics. As my term as president of SASA is beginning I hope that by the end of my term everyone sees my passion and some rubs off to those who are tired and feeling overwhelmed. Our community is amazing – put your hand up, get involved, ask for guidance.
As I already dreamt in 2022, one of my aims during my term on the SASA Executive is to bring more Statistics departments together for closer collaboration.
One of the current research teams I am involved with is a Doctoral Supervisor Capacity Development in Academic Statistics in South Africa. We held an incredibly successful workshop late January 2023, bringing together 29 young academics in Statistics from across the country for an in-person workshop in Pretoria. The workshop covered the challenges experiences in Academic Statistics and those of supervision without significant senior mentorship. I am very passionate about building capacity together – each department can only benefit from support from others. We plan further workshops in 2023 in case you missed the January workshop. Please sign up!
My current roles are also at ICCSSA as CEO and SACNASP as a council member. These concurrent positions are valuable for SASA’s progress in South Africa and the symbiotic relationship between SASA, ICCSSA and SACNASP can be nurtured going forward.
As I already mentioned at the SASA 2022 conference, I have some visions I hope to get in place for SASA. One of these is to promote a working group structure within our interest groups, to extend their roles further than a few seminars a year. The interest groups will act as (virtual) meeting points for research groups in that field, and encourage more in-depth collaboration. The executive will also shortly send out a request to HODs to nominate a SASA representative for each department in order to facilitate communication in small departments and departments that are hybrid. This was an excellent suggestion made at the 2022 AGM.
Let me conclude with an invitation. My ideas are not the only way to do things, neither are the rest of the executives’. We volunteer our time because we are passionate about Statistics in South Africa. However, all views are needed to effectively build Statistics in South Africa. We are still a field in crisis, with a constant need for more lecturers as class sizes increase faster than we grow, while simultaneously needing to take ownership of Statistics in a world where Data Science is anybody’s playing ground. I welcome all comments and suggestions so that the executive can serve the community.