Explorations Both Personal and Professional
by Professor Heather Smith
This past academic year was my 15th at Cal Poly and I spent it on sabbatical, working on several different types of projects. I kept busy on two consulting projects: one in biomedical research and another in genetics. I began work with Dr. Carlton and Dr. Devore as a co-author on a business statistics textbook. I also collaborated with the San Luis Obispo Unified School District and several of their schools to improve STEM education, especially in the mathematics curriculum.
While not in the classroom each day, I did come to realize how much I miss teaching our great Cal Poly students. I especially missed working with our majors in the Survey Research course, the Consulting course, and on senior projects. I look forward to getting back to all of these activities this year.
As you may already know a new science building is under construction at Cal Poly. In preparation for its completion, the statistics faculty submitted a proposal to Dean Bailey for how our department might use the additional space that will become available in Building 25. We hope to house all of our faculty members in one place, provide more space for our Statistics majors to work collaboratively on coursework and research, and expand our Statistical Consulting service by having space for a consulting office.
On a personal note, I took two international trips this year, one for professional development and one for pleasure. I took a two week trip to Slovenia, giving a talk about Cal Poly’s statistical consulting course at the International Conference on the Teaching of Statistics (ICOTS -8). Several other Cal Poly statistics faculty attended this conference and we all had a great time, both working and exploring Slovenia.
In April, my husband David, sons Austin and Hadden, and I took a few weeks of vacation in the south end of the south island of New Zealand. Years ago, when I worked for Westat, I consulted at New Zealand Steel, located on the north island. At that time I had opportunities to explore both the north and south islands quite a bit. This time I was excited to take my family with me to visit this fabulous country. We stayed in cottages throughout the region and got to see amazing wildlife and scenery (and of course plenty of sheep).
We started our trip in my favorite New Zealand city, Dunedin, where a highlight was visiting the breeding grounds of the endangered Royal Albatross and the endangered Yellow eyed penguin. We then moved on to Lake Manapouri on the wild west coast. There we took a boat out on Doubtful Sound, a very remote wilderness area. We saw all manner of birds, dolphins, and penguins, but mostly we saw the mammoth fiord that Captain Cook was too afraid to sail into. While at Manapouri we hiked part of the famous Kepler Track, seeing several filming sites from the Lord of the Rings movies.
Onward to Queenstown, my son Austin jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, we all jet boated down the glacier-fed Dart River, watched the crazy bungee jumpers, and visited a few great wineries. From there we meandered over to the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers, hiking as we went, and taking a scenic flight up to the glacier tops and the peaks of Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman. These glaciers flow right down to the Tasman Sea, where we also went kayaking.
Our final stop took us through Arthur’s Pass National Park to the city of Christchurch, where the oldest part of the city was destroyed by a series of recent earthquakes. Of course it is sad to see such devastation. We toured the botanical gardens, went punting on the Avon River, and took a boat out into the Pacific Ocean to see endangered Hector dolphins. Then home. The trip was fantastic! I would love to go back and see more of this wonderful country and its people. If you ever plan a trip to New Zealand, let me know and we can talk more about it. Enjoy a few of the pictures.
