Daniel & Christine Rand Scholarship

The Daniel and Christine Rand Scholarship was established with the Winona State University Foundation. The scholarship will benefit and encourage students who major in Statistics and Data Science at WSU.

Criteria

1. Each recipient must be an undergraduate student enrolled full-time or part-time and in good standing at Winona State University (minimum of 6 credits per semester, fall and spring.)
2. Each recipient must be a Sophomore, Junior, Senior or 5th year student.
3. Each recipient must be a declared Data Science or Statistics major.
4. Each recipient must have a GPA of 3.0 or higher.
5. As part of the application process for this scholarship, the student must submit an essay describing the following:

• Statement of purpose
• Why he/she has chosen Data Science or Statistics as a major
• Future professional goals/objectives
• Leadership by his/her involvement at WSU or community activities

Biography/Motivation

I (Daniel) went to Purdue in 1971 to major in Statistics, a degree which wasn’t known or desirable in the 1970s. But I received a scholarship and work study money from Purdue, and that allowed me to obtain a Bachelor’s degree and then a Master’s degree in Applied Statistics. I worked at IBM for 17 years and was able to eventually get a position as an internal statistical consultant, a job that didn’t exist when I started at IBM. I left in a downsizing and returned to school at the University of Minnesota to get a PhD in Industrial Engineering. My wife continued to work at IBM and support my return to school. I became the primary caregiver for our two sons, as I was an early entrant in distance learning in the mid-90s. Upon completion, I expected to consult or teach at a university. Through good fortune, I landed a job at the university closest to me, Winona State University, to teach statistics. In recent years, my colleagues had the foresight to develop a new program in Data Science. This seemed to foresee a future need, much like going into statistics in the ’70s. Upon retirement from my second career at Winona State after 16 years, I want to help young people fund their education in these more expensive times. I want to encourage those young people to explore their interest in statistical methods, analytics, and data science.