Final ISI Letter:
Prof. Jef L. Teugels
ISI President.
Dear Prof. Teugels:
Thank-you for your response to my communication regarding the absence of Ibero-American officers in the current IASE/ICOTS-8 Conference. Nothing is further from my mind, than to start a controversy with you, regarding this issue. But there are some elements in your findings that have to be addressed. I do not expect you to respond to this email. And I will not write to you again, after this letter.
I want to underline that I have spent several years researching the problem of minority discrimination and lack of access to professional careers in the United States. And that I have written (http://web.cortland.edu/matresearch/EngEdNsfPropSumry2010.rtf) and submitted proposals in this complicated area, which is akin to the one I raised with you.
First, I have no qualms with the local organising committee being made up of local people. What I raised with you was the fact that, out of an organizing committee of 32 persons (and I excluded the local committee but did include the two organizers of each of the ten special sessions) there was not a single officer from Ibero-America, in spite of IASE having 15% or more of Ibero-American members.
Secondly, the composition of the international program committee is not one that reaches out to the IASE membership. It is composed of six persons, five of which are from Australia, New Zeland and the USA, (the sixth is from Slovenia). Then, out of the twenty topic convenors (two convenors from each of ten topics), and the six contributed papers and poster convenors (for a total of 32 officers that I mention) not a single one of them is from Ibero-America. However, out of these same 32 officers, we find five Australians, four from United Kingdom, eight from the United States, and three from New Zeland. If this were a random sample of size 32, taken from a population with 15% Ibero-American the probability of finding no Ibero-American members in the sample is ZERO.
This is especially troubling since the previous ICOTS took place in Ibero-America. And, for practical (corporate memory) as well as for elementary courtesy reasons, at least one Ibero-American officer should have been included (http://icots8.org/convenors.php).
It is true that among the rest of the group, of about 75 people around the world, there are some Ibero-Americans. But they are presenting papers; they are not Topic organizers. There is no indication to date, in the referred to ICOTS-8 Web Page, of a single Topic that you can signal out, with an organizer from Ibero-America.
Thirdly, Topic 10 (http://icots8.org/convenors.php) convenors are not, as you claim, from Ibero-America. Delia North is from South Africa, and Enriqueta Reston, from the Phillipines. Prof. Carmen Batanero is not participating in the main Topics 10 session (personal communication).
Finally, it is true that there are several communications, mainly in ordinary sessions from colleagues from Brasil and Argentina. But this only reinforces my previous statements. It appears that, for the current ICOTS-8 organizers, Ibero-Americans, like children, “are to be seen but not heard”.
We are allowed to present papers at a regular ICOTS session, but not to organize a Topics Session or to participate in the committees. And this situation, in addition to being unfair, does not help Ibero-Americans advance professionally. For, Topic Sessions are first filled with researchers familiar with the Session organizers. Since they know each other and work with each other, they find out about these sessions way in advance of the program being announced in the web. This diminishes our chances of presenting in one of those special sessions, and we are mostly left with the ordinary ones.
To better understand the depth and extent of this situation, you may want to peruse the article Diversifying the Engineering Workforce, by Chubin, May and Babco, in The Journal of Engineering Education, January 2005. The authors discuss “how minority students and faculty under-representation create a plethora of problems, in addition to just lack of role models. Only Minority Tenured Faculty and Full Professors can aspire to become Chairs, Deans and university administrators. These are the ones who define career programs, rules for recruitment and tenure, for research funds and facilities, etc. It is imperative to close such gap, if effective change is sought.”
In an analogous way, we can state that Ibero-American under-representation in positions of influence such as Topics Session convenors and organizing committee members, create a plethora of problems for Ibero-American professional advancement. Similarly, an over-representation of colleagues from four English speaking countries (20 out of 32 makes 62.5% of them) in these same positions of authority, may create an unbalanced situation in their favor.
You conclude, “as far as I can evaluate, there are no sings of intentional
neglect towards that part of the world.” I never said that the neglect was
intentional. But there is enough quantitative evidence to support that neglect
exists. And the damage is the same.
Just for the sake of comparison, assume ICOTS were an American corporation having 15% of Hispanic professionals, and having filled all its 32 key administrative positions without a single Hispanic. You can be sure that a class-action suit, on grounds of ethnic discrimination, could be filed in court. And such corporation would have a very hard time convincing the Judge and the Jury, that discrimination had not occurred.
I am saddened by your response. I was expecting that you would become aware of the situation, and that you would have reacted by saying that you would share with ICOTS this issue. And that, in the next conference, this situation would not occur. Instead, you state that you are happy that Russia, another European country which until recently was the second most powerful nation on earth, is now establishing contact with ICOTS.
I am an Ibero-American, and come from a Third World, developing country. We have a saying: “out of everything, something positive comes out”. The only positive thing I can see coming out of this sad situation is an example that clearly shows us how we need to strengthen or create our own organizations. Because, otherwise, we will remain behind, and will never catch up with the first world. I will use this example to make our point.
Respectfully,
Jorge Luis Romeu
Juarez Lincoln Marti International Project Director
http://web.cortland.edu/matresearch
c.c.
Prof. Jae Chang Lee
President Elect
Ms. Ada van Kimpen
Director
January 26, 2010.
Original ISI Letter
Prof. Jef L. Teugels
President jef.teugels@wis.kuleuven.be
Prof. Jae Chang Lee
President Elect jaeclee@korea.ac.kr
Ms. Ada van Kimpen
Director an.vankrimpen@cbs.nl
International Statistical Institute
Dear ISI Officers:
I am writing to you to bring up to your attention a matter dealing with IASE. However, I believe it should also be of interest to the entire ISI. I brought this up to the attention both IASE and ICOTS directors, a couple of weeks ago. But they did not reply. Apparently, they did not give the matter much importance. I hope you do.
The issue deals with regional representation in the ICOTS Conferences. Succinctly, Ibero America is a Region of 22 countries and some 600 million people. In Brazil the ICOTS-7 Conference took place in 2006. The Regional representation was well-balanced. With ICOTS-8 in Ljubljana, out of 32 possible members of its Executive and Convenors’ Committees, not a single Hispanic member is included. You can check their web pages, given in the Appendix at the end of this letter.
In a quick survey of IASE, I estimated at 15% the proportion of its Hispanic membership. A back of the envelope estimate of the Probability of Zero Hispanic members among the 32-member Exec and Convenors’ Committees; given Prop. = 0.15, is approximately zero.
It would have been elementary courtesy to include some member of ICOTS-7 in ICOTS-8 Committee. If nothing else, this would have provided Institutional Memory, and would have helped avoiding past mistakes. But this absence also sends Ibero America a message regarding the perception of our members, by some IASE officers. Is it possible the ICOTS Steering Committee could not find a single Ibero American good enough to join them, in the organization of the ICOTS Conference, out of our 15% IASE membership?
In the past, Prof. Carmen Batanero, whom I know well, whose professional qualifications are beyond discussion, and who is a Past President of IASE, was a Committee Member in ICOTS-6 and ICOTS-7. Can’t the current ICOTS officers find anyone else to fill her place?
There are also some practical fall-outs from such lack of Regional representation, in addition to the above-mentioned lack of sensitivity (and “Savoir Faire”). They include:
1) Lack of professional opportunity. Lacking Convenors dimimishes chances of giving an invited paper. Very often, Convenors are approached first by people they know and work with. When Invited Sessions are finally advertised, these are often already formed. Just take a look at the current ICOTS-8 Invited Session composition, and count the number of Ibero American papers included in them. Compare it with the number in ICOTS-7.
2) Refereeing. Ibero America speaks a language different from English. Referees are, in many cases, taken from the invited papers pool. Given that the invited papers are often refereed and that the number of Ibero Americans able to submit such papers are few, so is their representation among reviewers. Probability of being reviewed by a non-Spanish speaker is high. As a result, we sometimes experience the “native language” syndrome, with our papers. For, some reviewers detect our authors being from a (non-English speaking) region and include in their reviews, unsubstantiated, unrelated, or other obviously biased comments. Language then becomes, not a problem but a flag.
I am including, at the end of this communication, some data to support my statements. I am writing to you about this issue, because I feel this is an important one, both for Ibero America as well as for the ISI (for different reasons, however).
I am well aware of the diversity in ISI Council Membership (including such established Ibero American names as Martha Aliaga, Alicia Carriquiry, Manuel Marfan and Victor Perez-Abreu). It is clear, however, that IASE is not there, yet. As an integral part of ISI, however, any IASE situation also affects ISI. The objective of this letter is to help move IASE and ICOTS forward in the inclusiveness direction, something evidently in dire need.
I look forward to hearing your comments regarding this communication. And I also look forward to ICOTS-9 being more inclusive, regarding our Ibero American region, as well as to that of other world Regions, which may also share the same concerns I am raising here.
Respectfully,
Jorge Luis Romeu, Ph.D.
Director,
Juarez Lincoln Marti International Education Project
http://web.cortland.edu/matresearch
December 26, 1009.
Appendix:
Icots-6: Israel. Home Page: http://icots6.haifa.ac.il/icots6.html
No other Hispanic than Carmen Batanero, who is a past President of IASE.
Icots-7 Brazil. Home Page: http://www.maths.otago.ac.nz/icots7/icots7.php
International Program Committee Executives:
Include UK, New Zeland, USA, Spain and Brazil
Topic Convenors Include:
Brazil, Spain, New Zeland, Israel, USA, Singapore, Slovenia, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Greece and Germany
Icots-8 Slovenia. Home Page: http://icots8.org/
International Program Committee Executives:
Composed by: New Zeland, USA, Australia, Slovenia.
Topic Convenors Include:
Slovenia, Australia, UK, USA, Germany, Canada, Israel, Belgium, New Zeland, South Africa, Phillipines and Belgium.
Number of Icots-8 Exec Committee and Convenor Comm. Members: 32 persons.
Random Sample (letters B and R) of IASE web page roster yields:
Hispanic members = 15%