Census officials at Northwestern said working with the U.S. Census Bureau to count students on campus has been confusing and disorganized.
Lucile Krasnow, special assistant for community relations at NU, said the disorganization is a problem because the campus needs to be as prepared as possible when the counting begins.
“Working with the Census Bureau through the City of Evanston has been very confusing,” Krasnow said. “Believe it or not, they still have not completely nailed down the days they will be on campus in April.”
While the city has been an excellent partner in the process, the Census Bureau’s disorganization has made things more difficult, Krasnow said.
Evanston General Planner Craig Sklenar said the disorganization within the Census Bureau is caused by the Bureau constantly hiring new personnel to help them conduct the census.
“It’s a huge task in a very finite time period, so there are always a lot of people coming on board and trying to get up to speed,” Sklenar said.
Another reason for the disorganization is the bureau’s complexity, he said.
“Sometimes there is confusion in … knowing which department to talk to for your specific type of problem,” Sklenar said.
Sklenar said it took him two weeks to initially contact someone at the bureau to talk about operations. However after expressing his concerns with the disorganization to the Bureau, Sklenar said he has seen significant improvement.
NU has planned a Census Challenge in which residence halls and Greek organizations will compete for cash prizes by achieving the highest percentage of census participation, she said.
Off-campus students will receive census forms in the mail from March 15 through March 20, Sklenar said.
University spokesman Al Cubbage said students tend to ignore filling out the census because they identify with their hometown and don’t see themselves as Evanston residents.
“For census purposes,students actually are residents of Evanston, and that’s why we want to make sure they’re counted as much as possible,” Cubbage said.
Krasnow said it is important NU, Evanston and the Census Bureau sort out their problems because getting an accurate count could significantly alleviate the city’s budget deficit.
Each person counted in the census will bring in $980 per year to the city for the next 10 years.
“By completing the census, you’ll be contributing to upgrade and build schools, transportation, hospitals and the like at the local, state and national level,” Krasnow said.
NU and the Census Bureau are planning to have all group quarters on campus counted by the end of April, Sklenar said.
“It’s going to work fine,” Sklenar said. “We just had to convey to the U.S. Census Bureau our concerns, and once those were addressed, things are running much smoother than we could have imagined.” [email protected]
