Ice Cream Social

The New Academic Year
A Warm Welcome with “Howling Cow” Ice Cream

The Department of Statistics launched the 2015-16 academic year on Aug. 21 with its annual ice cream social. Over bowls of Howling Cow ice cream, the department welcomed its newest class of 30 undergraduates, 30 online master of statistics students, 51 graduate students and 46 certificate students. Howling Cow is premium ice cream made at NC State using dairy products from university cows. Alison McCoy organized the event.

Thanks to the efforts of Spencer Muse, the director of the undergraduate program; Roger Woodard, the director on the online program; and the co-directors of the graduate program, Howard Bondell and Donald Martin, the department has a diverse and very talented student population. Half of the students are female, and half of the graduate students hail from other countries.

After the ice cream social, Montse Fuentes introduced four new faculty members: Shuva Gupta, Luo Xiao, Eric Chi, and Jonathan Duggins. In addition, she introduced our visiting professors: Ciprian Crainiceanu from Johns Hopkins University and Michael Lavine from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She also introduced our new staff members: Ann (Nianyi) Zhang, grant proposal administrator; Michele Wolfe, executive assistant; and Tenille Naumann, business manager. The social was capped off with the 51 new graduate students introducing themselves with one interesting fact.