StatCom

Meetings/News

Statistics in the Community (StatCom) is a volunteer community outreach organization started at Purdue University’s Department of Statistics in 2001. Directed and staffed by graduate students, it provides professional statistical consulting services to governmental and nonprofit groups free of charge.

StatCom was founded in response to former Purdue President Martin Jischke's call to increase engagement between Purdue University and the surrounding community. With the help of a Member Initiatives Grant from the American Statistical Association (ASA), StatCom has now grown into an international StatCom Network with graduate students at many other institutions starting their own programs to serve their communities. Through
Purdue's Loeb Fountain at Founder's Park
its service learning activities, StatCom programs allow students to apply statistical concepts and classroom material to address real problems faced by local governments, schools, and other community organizations.

In addition to the consulting services, StatCom at Purdue also started a P-12 Outreach component in 2004 which serves as an effort to increase interest and achievement in statistics among pre-college students. StatCom P-12 Outreach members at Purdue develop age-appropriate, hands-on statistics activities for educational events, such as classroom visits and community festivals.

Any local nonprofit or governmental group is encouraged to contact StatCom at Purdue about its particular needs or projects. Possible clients include learning centers, libraries, schools, shelters, or local government departments.

Advice and assistance are available on a wide variety of statistical issues including: We assure client confidentiality.

To contact StatCom at Purdue about a potential project, email statcom@stat.purdue.edu, or call Teena Erwin at (765) 494-5324.