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Ask your scientific and professional organization to support an independent stand-alone Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics

Giovanna Guerrero-Medina's picture
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Dear members of the CienciaPR community and friends of Puerto Rico,

We would like to bring your attention to an urgent policy matter that is of deep concern to CienciaPR, and that is of relevance to many of you—scientists, students, educators, and allies—who with us celebrate and advocate for Puerto Rican science and the Puerto Rican scientific community.

For the past few months, many people (including members of the scientific community, more than 3,000 petitioners, and member of the U.S. Congress) have been concerned about the dismantling of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (PRIS), a publicly-funded but independently-run organization tasked with improving Puerto Rico’s statistical and data gathering systems and making objective statistical analyses available to the public. Over the years, PRIS reports have been invaluable to academics, policy-makers, journalists, and citizens interested in all aspects of Puerto Rican society. For reasons we can only speculate on, the Puerto Rico government has repeatedly made affronts to the PRIS’ independence and existence, and is now on a path to dismantle it.

The American Statistical Association—an organization that works tirelessly to defend access to sound, impartial data—has drafted a sign-on letter for scientific and professional organizations similarly interested in these principles. CienciaPR would like to invite you to get in touch with your professional or scientific society, and ask them to join the growing list of organizations (19 as of 4/25/18; see below) who have already signed this letter to defend impartial statistics in Puerto Rico and show support for the Puerto Rican scientific community.

The URL for the sign-on letter is www.tinyurl.com/StrongStats4PR. Below we include some draft language (similar to the one in this message) that you can use to write to the professional societies that you belong to.

Things are moving fast so we appreciate your prompt consideration. Any questions can be sent to Steve Pierson, Director of Science Policy at ASA (spierson@amstat.org).

As always, we are grateful for your support for Puerto Rico and our #cienciaboricua.

Sincerely,

Giovanna Guerrero Medina, PhD
Executive Director, Ciencia Puerto Rico
Director, Yale Ciencia Initiative
Yale School of Medicine, Office of Diversity & Inclusion

 

LANGUAGE YOU CAN USE TO WRITE TO YOUR PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY

We recommend that you email the policy or communications director of your professional society. If they don't have one, you can reach out to the organization's president or CEO.

Dear [NAME],

I am a [DESCRIBE WHO YOU ARE e.g. a scientist/graduate student/postoc at [INSTITUTION]], a member of [SOCIETY'S NAME], and a supporter of Ciencia Puerto Rico, an organization that celebrates and advocates for the Puerto Rican scientific community.

I would like to bring to the [SOCIETY'S NAME] attention an urgent policy matter that is of deep concern to Ciencia Puerto Rico and to members of the Puerto Rican scientific community, including many scientists and [SOCIETY'S NAME] members.

Over the past few months, many people (including members of the scientific community, more than 3,000 petitioners, and member of the U.S. Congress) have been concerned about the dismantling of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (PRIS), a publicly-funded but independently-run organization tasked with improving Puerto Rico’s statistical and data gathering systems and making objective statistical analyses available to the public. For over a decade, PRIS reports have been invaluable to academics, policy-makers, journalists, and citizens interested in a broad range of aspects of Puerto Rican society. For reasons we can only speculate on, the Puerto Rico government has repeatedly made affronts to the PRIS’ independence and existence, and is now on a path to dismantle it.

The American Statistical Association (ASA)—an organization that works tirelessly to defend access to sound, impartial data—has drafted a sign-on letter for scientific and professional organizations similarly interested in these principles, to defend impartial statistics in Puerto Rico and show support for the Puerto Rican scientific community. As a member of [SOCIETY'S NAME] I would like to respectfully ask you that [SOCIETY'S NAME] joins the growing list of organizations who have already signed this letter to defend impartial statistics in Puerto Rico and show support for the Puerto Rican scientific community.

Things are moving fast so we would appreciate rush consideration. Steve Pierson, Director of Science Policy at ASA (spierson@amstat.org), can provide more details.

Thank you,

[YOUR NAME]

 

LIST OF ORGANIZATIONS THAT HAVE SIGNED-ON www.tinyurl.com/StrongStats4PR (as of 4/25/18)

American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association of Geographers
American Educational Research Association
American Political Science Association
American Sociological Association
American Statistical Association
Applied Demography Program, Pennsylvania State University
Association of Population Centers
Association of Public Data Users
Ciencia Puerto Rico
Consortium of Social Science Associations
Council for Community and Economic Research
Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics
National Association for Business Economics
Population Association of America
Population Specialty Group, American Association of Geographers
Sense About Science USA
Society for Research in Child Development
Union of Concerned Scientists


 

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