The Joy of Statistics

My love affair with statistics began decades before I developed an introductory course for students planning further work in the sciences and social sciences at Concordia College, Ann Arbor, MI. Years later this course was included in an adult evening degree program. The title above comes from an evening course I taught at the University of Michigan, as an attempt to salvage graduate students from abandoning their graduate programs because of the reputation of a required statistics course.
Ever since teaching statistics courses, nothing delighted me more than a letter or phone call asking for a little help analyzing a questionnaire for an Independent Study Project, study paper, or to hear, "I had you in statistics. Will you write a recommendation for my application to grad school?" Or someone who has just finished the course calls and says, "By golly, Dr. von Fange, you can teach an old dog new tricks!" I welcome the note from a former student who starts out by writing, "I'm doing a little study in my organization.. .”