Announcements
Statistics Seminar, Dr. Chris Bilder
Wednesday, January 28, 2026 at 4pm in Justin 163
You Can't Do That with Statistics!
On December 5, 2025, the University of Nebraska Board of Regents voted 7-1 to eliminate the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Department of Statistics as part of a $27.5M budget cut. The vote concluded the department’s three-month long fight for its survival. How did this happen‽ The purpose of this presentation is to describe the conditions that led to the original proposal for elimination and to examine the department’s efforts to remain. University administrators touted their “data-informed approach” to justify their proposed elimination of multiple departments. However, statistics faculty discovered numerous problems with the data used and the statistical analyses performed by administrators. Further statistical analyses performed by the faculty showed that the Department of Statistics (and other departments proposed for elimination) actually ranked as top 20 programs at the university, rather than “underperforming” as characterized by the administration. In the end, this presentation is a tale of failed shared governance at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
SaveOurStats.com documents the struggle by the Department of Statistics. A recording of the presentation will be made available at this website.
About Dr. Chris Bilder
Dr. Chris Bilder is a KSU alumnus, a fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA), and Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Dr. Bilder has received numerous awards for his work in group testing, including the ASA’s Outstanding Statistical Application Award, which he has won twice. Dr. Bilder has served as the PI on numerous NSF and NIH grants, including two R01 grants from the NIH. He is the author of the textbook "Analysis of Categorical Data with R," co-authored with former KSU faculty member Dr. Tom Loughin. Finally, Dr. Bilder is well-known for his high-quality and innovative teaching, including over a decade of lectures available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisBilder.