Statistics Centre

University of Alberta

History of the Statistics Centre

 

In April 1986 a submission was made to the University of Alberta for funding of a Graduate Services Program in Applied Statistics under the Special Initiatives Program (1986-87). In July 1986 we were informed that a continuing base budget annual allocation of $44,000 had been made.

In the proposal put forward to the Special Initiatives Program, the Graduate Services Program in Applied Statistics was described as having two integrated components:

 

· The Statistical Service Laboratory to provide a university-wide statistical consulting service for faculty members and graduate students and to serve as a training ground for students registered in a new M.Sc. program in Applied Statistics.

 

· The M.Sc. program in Applied Statistics to supply, through its graduate students, a major contribution to the consulting services.

 

 

The annual allocation of $44,000 from the University made possible the establishment of a statistical services laboratory, called the Statistical Services Centre (SSC) in September 1986. It provided teaching replacement funds for the equivalent of four single-term course sections in order to release faculty statisticians for consulting duties and funds for the support of graduate students in applied statistics.

 

In November of 1986 an application was submitted to NSERC for an Infrastructure Grant in support of the SSC and this resulted in a three-year grant of $14,000 per annum, commencing in 1987. This was followed by a further three-year grant of $39,086 per annum, a one-year grant of $32,000 and a three-year grant of $22,000 per annum, commencing in 1994.

The Infrastructure Grants program was terminated in the spring of 1996. By this time, the funds originally granted for teaching relief under the Special Initiatives Project had been diverted to other uses by the Faculty of Science.

 

In June of 1994 the Statistical Services Committee proposed a number of changes in the structure of the SSC. These included a change in the name to Statistics Centre, reflecting a somewhat broader mandate. This mandate is now to include collaborative research and the organization of seminars as well as graduate training and consulting. These proposals were approved by the executive council of the newly formed Department of Mathematical Sciences in the fall of 1994. The consulting arm of the Statistics Centre subsequently became the Statistical Consulting Service (SCS).