Home > Information > History

Announcements:

	Upcoming seminars
	Grad. App. preferred due date is Feb. 1
	STAT Club meeting information

4. After World War II

Immediately after the second world war, there was rapid development of statistics at Oklahoma State University as well as across Oklahoma. At the university of Oklahoma the Better Business Bureau flourished under the direction of Francis R. Cella. In 1947 the Oklahoma City chapter of the American Statistical Association was chartered by Cella as Chapter President. The chapter remained active for many years but was finally dropped from the list of active chapters in 1960.

The year 1946-1947 was a year of rejuvenation for statistics at Oklahoma state university and the first M.S. degree was given in 1948. By 1950 the modest offering of three courses listed in 1939-1940 had grown to a full-fledged curriculum consisting of sixteen courses. The 1950-60 department was headed by Dr. Ed Brandt. Development of a sound computing center was among the many accomplishments of this department.

In 1953 Franklin A. Graybill joined the statistics faculty at Oklahoma State University. He was one of the first M.S. statistics graduates at Oklahoma State University in 1948. After receiving his degree at Iowa State University, he returned to Stillwater. After a distinguished career at Oklahoma State University he resigned in 1960 to head the Department of Statistics at Colorado State University.

In 1956 Dr. Robert D. Morrison returned to Oklahoma State University after completing his Ph.D. degree at North Carolina State University. He assumed a heavy consulting role and served tirelessly until his retirement in 1981. In 1959 Dr. David l. Weeks joined the faculty after completing his Ph.D. degree under the guidance of Dr. Graybill.

In the 1950’s Oklahoma was a member of the Southern Regional Education Compact and Carl Marshall was a member of the Southern Region Education Board (SREB) Committee on Statistics. This committee launched a program of special summer sessions in statistics for participating institutions. In 1958 Oklahoma State University was the host of one of these summer sessions which was held in conjunction with an NSF Institute for mathematics teachers.

Since 1960 the program first begun by Carl Marshall has grown and blossomed. In 1961, the Department of Mathematics was designated the Department of Mathematics and Statistics by executive order of the President. In 1970 the Department of Statistics was formed.

In 1968 the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Statistics were officially recognized. Prior to that the graduate degrees in statistics were called either a major in Mathematics or a major in Mathematics and Statistics. The first Ph.D. degree was given to Albert W. Wortham in 1954. Since the first graduate degrees were given, more than ___ Masters degree and more than ___ Ph.D. degrees have been conferred.

Across the campus changes in the teaching of statistics have occurred. In 1969 the College of Business gave up the teaching of elementary statistics (Mr. Blair’s course) to the Department of Statistics. There are presently over ___ students per semester in this elementary course. The descendant of the course, 582 School Statistics, along with a few other courses is still offered by the College of Education.

Last update: 06/10/2003