Computers for Kids is Statistically Significant for One Adult — Andrew Schaffner
Computing has opened up the world to statistics, but I only recently realized it was statistics that opened up the world of computing to me. Sure, I'm a Cal Poly alumnus (B.S., Mathematics, 1992, with a statistics minor) and have been a faculty member for more than 15 years now, but it turns out that my ties to the Statistics Department are even deeper than I knew, dating back to 1981 when I was 10 years old. The following story is a tribute to a former Cal Poly statistician who I just learned was influential in my life — Joyce Curry Daly.
Every once in a while it's time for a deep purging of junk — those files and papers that accumulate over time. The Statistics Department was clearing out the old and digitizing what we needed to save. Our student assistant Julia Schedler (class of 2013) showed me a paper from the junk pile that she thought was cute. It showed a cartoon of a couple of early personal computers (Radio Shack TRS-80’s) and was advertising a kids' summer computing program at Cal Poly. The advertisement reads: "Learn about graphics — 'pictures' on the computer screen."
What a surprise for me! I recognized this flyer from the summer camp I went to as a 10-year-old! The flyer further revealed that the camp was sponsored by the Computer Science and Statistics Department. (In 1981, Computer Science and Statistics was a single department.) Furthermore, Joyce Curry-Daly was one of three faculty members running the program. I knew Joyce as an undergrad — I was a grader for her and often tutored her students — but I never realized we had met 10 years prior when I was a young boy.
For years when folks asked me how I became interested in statistics I usually told them I had a really influential instructor — Jay Devore. I think he's going to have to share some of that credit with Joyce now!
