FENStatS News

Five societies (ASA, ENAR, IMS, SSC, WNAR) are the founding (the official) partners of the Joint Statistical Meeting (JSM). The JSM Agreement allows for the addition of non-official partners, which have come to be known as "special partners."

The purpose envisioned for the addition of special partners is to increase the diversity of participation in the JSM, especially to add to the scientific content of the meetings or to increase attendance from groups that might not otherwise attend. The founding partners have concluded there is substantial value in the participation of other statistical societies in JSM as special partners, even though there is often overlap among memberships. The value of the "joint" aspect of JSM is enhanced by the commitment of other societies to be partners in JSM.

For a society to become a JSM special partner, it must satisfy the following criteria, and be approved by vote of three of the five founding partners, one of which must be the ASA:
1. A JSM special partner must be a not-for-profit statistical society that has been in existence for at least five years by the time it would become a partner.
2. It must have a constitution and/or by-laws, available to the general public, which include a mission that is compatible with the aims of JSM.
3. The membership of the society must be open to all.
4. The society's participation should add scientific content to the JSM program or contribute significantly to the geographical and/or ethnic diversity of the participants.
5. It must have at least 300 dues-paying members (on average, recognizing that membership varies from time to time), not including free or low cost student memberships.
6. It should have significant activities outside of its meeting at JSM. A separate meeting or publications such as a journal or regular membership newsletter are examples of such activities.

The JSM founding partners reserve the right to judge whether the above criteria have been met sufficiently to warrant the group's inclusion as a special partner.

Special partners are approved for an initial period of up to three years, at which time they may reapply to continue their status as special partners. Special partners may be removed by a majority vote of the founding partners if the criteria for special partnership are no longer being satisfied and there are no plans to work toward meeting those criteria.

Each time a special partner is approved by the founding partners, a document describing the benefits that special partner will receive will be provided to the new partner. The following benefits will be given to special partners:
** They are to be listed in the program as JSM partners (an asterisk denotes the founding partners in such listings).
** Members of special partner societies pay the JSM member registration rate even if they are not also members of one ** of the five official JSM partners.
** Special partner societies may schedule rooms for the purpose of holding business meetings and/or mixers.
** One allocated invited session will be given to each new partner. All partners remain eligible to compete for invited sessions in the "outside organizations" competition.

For questions about this matter, Ron Wasserstein should be contacted at his e-mail address.