Mary Parker
Teaching Experience
1978-present. Austin Community College. Professor of Mathematics.
2006 -present University of Texas at Austin Associate Professor of Instruction, Department of Statistics and Data Science
1989-92 and 1995-2006. University of Texas at Austin Senior Lecturer, Department of Mathematics
1976-78. North Harris County College. Department Chair of Mathematics.
1975-76. University of Texas, Assistant Instructor.
1972-73. University of Texas, Teaching Assistant.
1971-72. University of Oregon, Teaching Assistant.
Vita
Degrees earned:
Ph.D. 1988. Department of Mathematics, University of Texas, Austin. Supervisor: Carl Morris. Dissertation: Empirical Bayes Estimation: The Slightly Unequal Variance Case.
M.A. 1972. Department of Mathematics, University of Oregon. Major: Mathematics
B.A. 1971. University of Texas, Austin. Major: Plan II Honors program.
Honors and Distinctions:
- Phi Beta Kappa, Junior Fellow, University of Texas at Austin, 1969-1971
- University Fellowship, University of Texas at Austin, 1973-1975
Work Experience:
2019-present. Austin Community College Adjunct Professor of Mathematics (part-time)
1992-93 and 1995 -present. UT Austin. Associate Professor of Instruction: (part-time)
Department of Mathematics and later Department of Statistics and Data Science.
1978-2019 (retired) Austin Community College. Professor of Mathematics.
1976-78. Lone Star College - North Harris Campus, Houston, Texas. Department Chair of Mathematics.
1972-76. University of Texas, Austin. Teaching Assistant, University Fellowship, and Assistant Instructor.
1971-72. University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon. Teaching Assistant.
Committee Work with Austin Community College:
- Math Department Task Force 1978 – continuing through present
- Various Math Department committees 1978 continuing through present
- Mathematics Department. Chair 1993-1995 (North campuses) and the full math department: 1998-1999 and 2010-2011.
- In 1999, we adopted a considerably stronger faculty evaluation procedure than we had had, which has continued for more than 20 years. The new (2024) ACC faculty evaluation procedure is similar to it.
- In 2010-2011 we started work with Statway/Quantway, which was a precursor of the Dana Center work on co-requisite courses We implemented co-requisite courses fairly fully by about 2015..
- Also served on various committees, including Chair of the Elementary Statistics committee for many years and of various other committees, including some committees after my retirement, while I am teaching as an adjunct professor.
- Developed and updated (with Stephen Rodi and, over time, with the various course committees) the ACC Math Manual 1982 through about 2003, when the committees took it over, with staff support.
ACC College Committees outside of the Math Department
- General Education / Core Curriculum Assessment Committee, 2000 - 2018
- Web Advisory Committee, 1998 – 2015
- Committee to implement online Withdrawal Capability, 2006. Co-chair. We developed a website to lead students through the various things they should consider before withdrawing. It was at least five years before that website was considered to need revision. This was a “touchy” subject at the time because it seemed that it might be “too easy” for students to withdraw if they could just do it online.
- Program Review Committee, 1999 - 2004.
- Assessment and Advising Committee, 1993-1995, 2001-2005.
- Student Success Committee, 2004-2006
- Faculty Senate Policies and Procedures Committee, 2003-2015, and about half the years from 1983-2003.
- Faculty Senate President, 1991-1992. Faculty Association President, 1981-1982. .
University of Texas at Austin teaching (one course per semester before 2021)
- 2018-present. Department of Statistics and Data Science (SDS), Associate Professor of Instruction.
- 2021-present: The MSDS (Master of Statistics and Data Science) program is a joint program of SDS and the Computer Science Department. Peter Mueller and I developed the course Probability and Simulation-Based Statistics in 2020-21 and I have been the instructor each fall and spring since then.
- 2018-present: Teaching SDS 384 Topic 2 and SDS 384 Topic 3, Mathematical Statistics I and II. These courses are cross-listed with M384C and M384D and CSE 384R and CSE384S and have been since SDS was founded.
- 2018 and 2019. Summer Statistics Institute, Course: Common Mistakes in using Statistics: Spotting Them and Avoiding Them.
- 2007-2018. Division of Statistics and Scientific Computation and then Department of Statistics and Data Science, Senior Lecturer.
- Taught SDS 384 Topic 2 and SDS 384 Topic 3, Mathematical Statistics I and II.each year, These courses were cross-listed with Math and CSE.
- 2008 and 2009, M394C Computational Statistics.
- 2008 and 2009. Summer Statistics Institute: Course: Bayesian Statistics.
- 2002-2007. Department of Mathematics, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics and Statistics. Taught Math 384C and M384D, Mathematical Statistics I and II. These courses were cross-listed with two other departments.
- 1989-92 and 1995-2002. Department of Mathematics, Lecturer in Mathematics and Statistics. Taught Math 378K, Mathematical Statistics; M384G, Regression; and Math 384C and M384D, Mathematical Statistics I and II..
Committee Work at UT Austin (Department of Statistics and Data Sciences)
- Oversight Committee for the Master’s in Statistics degree 2002-present
- Evaluation of Non-Tenure-Track faculty 2011-2018
- Admission to MS in Statistics 2002-present
Professional Organizations:
- Mathematical Association of America. Member 1976-2020
- 2012-2019. Served on the Committee on the Undergraduate Program (CUPM) and one of its subcommittees: Math Across the Disciplines. Co-author of the report on Statistics for the 2015 CUPM Guidelines
- 1999-2004 Served as a member of the joint committee of the MAA and the ASA on undergraduate statistics education.
- 1992-1998 Served on the Editorial Review Boards of the Spectrum series and the MAA Notes series, and on the committee to review the recommended library lists.
- Texas Section of the Mathematical Association of America. Served on the Executive Committee 1985
- American Statistical Association. Member 1983-2020
- Member of various sections, including Statistics Education Section, Statistical Consulting Section, and the Statistical Graphics Section. Served on the Executive Committee of the Statistics Education section, and as a member of the Joint Committee of ASA – AMATYC, 2003-2008
- Austin Chapter of the American Statistical Association. Served as officer and Chairperson at various times in 1984-89
- CAUSE (Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education) http://www.causeweb.org/ I was in the founding group of this national organization and was on the Board, 2005 – 2008. It has many of the “perks” of a professional organization, but individual membership is free. I was a strong advocate for this, as most community college statistics teachers needed such support. We had very successful in-person conferences for several years and then branched out to having electronic conferences every other year. I was a very strong proponent of that, and was delighted (the rest of the group was mostly surprised) when our first electronic conference drew twice as many attendees as the in-person conferences (approximately 400 instead of 200.) The data showed that a large proportion of those had never attended a professional conference before and many were from community colleges. In 2024, the organization is still going strong.
- Texas Community College Teachers Association. Member 1976-present
- Served as President in 1987-88
- Served as President-Elect in 1986-87. Part of my work that year was to represent TCCTA at the Legislative Select Committee on Higher Education.
- Active in the Professional Development Committee, the Nominating Committee, and the Long-Range Planning Committee, at various times in 1983-1995 (During the mid-1980’s there were approximately 6000 members each year.)
- 1984. Invited speaker at the summer meeting to support new faculty organization leaders.
Other Professional Activities:
- Statway (2009 – 2013) This was a joint project of the Charles A Dana Center and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, formed to develop a better path to prepare students for non-STEM college-level math classes. This is an integrated developmental math class and college-level statistics class. After a couple of years, the two organizations split and carried out the same mission in different ways. I was a member of the original planning group in 2009 and on the author team for the original curriculum materials in 2010. I wrote the material covering the math topics that didn’t fit conveniently into the standard statistics course curriculum (comparing/contrasting statistical models and mathematical models, additional algebra of linear models, and then proportional models, exponential models, power models and graphical solutions to questions involving such models.)
As part of an ACC team, I taught the course and continued the work on refining the materials for three years. After that, our college developed our own program, which was based, to a large extent, on what we had learned from Statway. - Complete College America. (2012-2014) This grant-funded organization works to provide states and colleges with information and support to improve college retention and graduation rates. The Carnegie group recommended me to them as a “curriculum expert” and I presented at five different conferences.
- Revising the developmental math curriculum at ACC (2009-2012) From the same types of concerns and conversations that resulted in Statway, within our math department at ACC, we developed a different prerequisite course (MATD 0385) for our two non-STEM math courses than the usual Intermediate Algebra. Two of us developed the curriculum and taught it in 2009 and our department has continued to refine and revise it, and then later, to use those ideas and experiences to move most of our department’s developmental math offerings to a “co-requisite” model.
- Math for Measurement. (2000 – 2010) https://www.austincc.edu/mparker/mfm/ My husband and I developed this as an alternative to “Technical Math” when the THECB discontinued that as an approved course. It includes measurement variation, including propagation of error, trigonometry for measurement, and modeling with linear, quadratic, and exponential models. This modeling includes use of spreadsheets to build the models and to change the criteria for optimization. The target audience is students in applied science areas such as building trades, welding, etc. who need some mathematical skills and for whom the usual algebra courses were not useful enough.
- Topics in Developmental Math. (2007-2008) I developed this specialized developmental math course to support ACC’s Biotechnology program.
- Presentations on teaching. Frequently gave talks at the Joint Mathematics Meetings and the Joint Statistics Meetings. Topics include teaching Mathematical Statistics, teaching Elementary Statistics, and Mathematical Modeling and various curriculum initiatives. Have organized an invited panel on research in undergraduate mathematics courses at the math meetings. Organized contributed paper sessions on statistics about seven different times in 1993 – 2008 and in Math Across the Disciplines three times in 2016-2019.. Presenter in several MAA minicourses on teaching statistics with active learning strategies, 1995, 1999, 2000.
Organized an invited panel session in 2005 on what Mathematical Statistics topics should continue to be taught to graduate students as the new areas in the field are more computer-intensive. Speakers: Barbara Bailar, US Census Bureau; Carl Morris, Harvard University; Bradley Efron, Stanford University. - Presented, with Bob DelMas, a CAUSE-sponsored week-long workshop in June 2008 on “Improving Instruction in Introductory Statistics.”
- Associate Editor for The American Statistician, 2001 - 2003.
- Undergraduate Statistics Education Initiative (American Statistical Association): April 2000 – 2002 Participated in invited conference in April 2000, planner and presenter at symposium in August 2000, prepared website and coauthored paper on minors in statistics, and participated in invited planning conference in July 2001. This culminated in the establishment of CAUSE.
- Curriculum Foundations Initiative (Mathematical Association of America): Fall 2000 - 2002. Participated in invited conference for statistics in October 2000 and invited conference on summarizing results from all the conferences in November 2001.
- Curriculum development for prospective middle-school teachers under grant to Southwest Texas State University, 2001 - 2003. Preparing modules on statistics and trigonometry.
- Presenter and project coordinator at two STATS workshops. Summer 1996, University of Tennessee, and Summer 1998, University of the Pacific.
- Advisory Board for development of ActivStats by Paul Velleman. 1997-98
- Editorial Review Board of the Journal for Statistical Education, a refereed electronic journal, 1992-1996.
- Co-Principal Investigator (with George Cobb of Mount Holyoke College) of a $450,000 grant to the Mathematical Association America from the National Science Foundation, "Statistical Thinking and Teaching Statistics." (1993-95). We provided nine week-long summer workshops (with e-mail discussion before and after) for college mathematics teachers who teach statistics but have little training in statistics. These workshops discuss the current trends in statistics education toward the use of real data, projects, and activities, in addition to providing additional training in the statistical techniques. George and I ran this for the original 3 years. Based on this success, NSF funded an additional 3 years, which were run by some colleagues of ours. It was considered to be important because it was becoming clear that there was and would continue to be a demand for more college students taking statistics, and most of those courses were taught in mathematics departments. We were able to make a convincing case (among the teaching community of statisticians and to NSF) that mathematicians really could and would teach modern statistical thinking if they were exposed to it enough to get past the traditional (pre computer) statistics course material.
- Set up and maintain websites for various committees, departments, and other organizations. 1996 - 2009.
- ACC Board of Trustees, 1996 – 1999
- ACC Executive VP for Instruction, 1999 - 2001;
- ACC Associate VP for Academic areas. 1999-2004; several Deans of Academic areas, 1999 - 2009;
- numerous pages for ACC math department, 1996 - 2008;
- ACC Biotechnology Department, 2000 - 2002;
- General Education / Core Curriculum Assessment Committee, 2000 – 2008;
- Department pages for all ACC departments (approximately 40) who didn't have their self-maintained own web page, 1999 - 2004. Have assisted numerous departments and administrative areas get started with web pages and provide back-up assistance when they have trouble.
- Austin Chapter of ASA, 1999 – 2002.
- St. Luke United Methodist church, 1999 – 2009.
- Turk Pipkin, author and performer, 2000 - 2008.
Other Community Activities:
- Wesley Foundation. Board member 1995-1999. This organization of the United Methodist Church provides outreach to the college-student community in Austin through a program at Wesley House, near the UT campus, and student programs at Huston-Tillotson College, First United Methodist Church, University United Methodist Church, and St. Luke United Methodist Church.
- Foundation Communities. (Originally Central Texas Mutual Housing Association) This non-profit organization, founded in 1989, provides housing that builds strong communities through resident participation for low- and moderate-income families .It was founded as an outgrowth of College Houses.
- Founding Board member 1989-91
- Board Member 1989-1994
- President 1993;
- Secretary most of the rest of the time I was on the Board
- College Houses, Inc. 1969-71, 1973-76, 1978-86.
- Founding Director of 21st Street College House, 1974
- Chairman of the Board, 1974-75
- Community member of the Board, 1978-86
- Chairperson of the
Committee on Management, Operations, and Organization, most of 1978-86.
This non-profit organization provides a residential-college-like experience for college students in Austin. As a co-operative, it provides more affordable housing for students than other housing in the UT West Campus area. During the years from 1969-86, we expanded from an organization of about 80 members who individually rented rooms in a house owned by a private landlord to an organization which owned and operated five units in the West Campus area around UT with a total of approximately 400 member residents. In later years, the organization has continued to flourish and now has two additional communities.
Published: January 22, 2025