New Additions

By Professor Jeff Sklar

I just finished my sixth year in the department, and it ended on a great note as I received tenure and a promotion to associate professor.  It was a great feeling (and a bit of a relief) to reach this career milestone, but I know that the hard work will continue.   

In addition to teaching courses, I am busy working on projects that I hope will contribute to the statistics discipline, as well as educational policy.  I am working with Shonda Kuiper, a statistics professor from Grinnell College in Iowa, to finish a textbook for a second course in statistics, due to be released in January 2012.  Guided investigations of real data are used to present and illustrate various statistical techniques and methods.  I have been working on this project for four years, and it’s great that the book is finally in the last editing and proofreading stages.

Earlier this year I was awarded an Extramural Funding Initiative (EFI) grant to work on a research project to investigate students who change majors at Cal Poly.  My research assistant Logan Lossing, a Mathematics and Statistics major, and I will analyze data on the freshmen Cal Poly cohort who entered in fall 2003 using logistic regression and discrete-time survival analysis methods.  Our goal will be to determine which students are more likely to change major, and how changing major affects persistence and graduation rates. 

My wife, Maria, and I have been adjusting to the roles and responsibilities of being first-time parents, while juggling work and school.  This past summer, Maria finished her master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Administration.  This was an extremely busy year for her, as she was also working full time as an advisor in the College of Engineering.  

Our daughter Yazmin is enrolled in the Orfalea Family and ASI Children’s Center, so she is also part of the Cal Poly family and always near us.  Finally, we are expecting our second child (a boy) in mid-September.  We will definitely have our hands full with two little ones, but we are extremely happy and excited about our new addition.