That was also my impression, especially considering that CMU has a Machine Learning department (above and beyond their existing Stats Dept.) and there are Data

That was also my impression, especially considering that CMU has a Machine Learning department (above and beyond their existing Stats Dept.) and there are Data Science Master's programs popping up all around. Get on the bus! The politics and turf battles must be fascinating, because if there is one (technical) discipline that feels encroached-upon and under-appreciated, it's statistics. Finally, some appreciation, and they'd hate to cede any control to (say) a bunch of upstarts from the CS dept. who wouldn't know a James-Stein estimator from Adam.