With over 300 million people living in 50 states, it is a tremendous challenge to effectively, efficiently and accurately count the country’s population. But despite its magnitude, one former University professor is taking the challenge head-on as the person responsible for the 2010 Census.

Robert Groves, director of the United States Census Bureau and former director of the University’s Survey Research Center, is the man charged with leading that effort and he says he fully recognizes the magnitude of this “deeply constitutional mandate.”

“(The Census) repaints the portrait of America every ten years. It tells us who we’ve become and almost every decade begins a conversation of who we want to be,” Groves said in an interview with The Michigan Daily earlier this week.
“Article 1, Section 2 (of the Constitution) specifies that we will do a census every ten years to reapportion the House of Representatives,” Groves said. “Since 1790, when the first Census was done, there have been laws passed by Congress that return taxpayer money to local areas based on population counts, and the population counts come from the census. So, the fair share of those monies depends on accurate census participation.”

Groves was nominated by President Barack Obama last April to lead the Census Bureau. Groves said he was very surprised to find out he had been selected by the President, saying “it’s not the kind of job you seek out.”

“I was sitting innocently in my office one day, one Friday, grading graduate student draft papers, as I recall, and I got a phone call from the White House and that began a long series of discussions,” Groves said.

Though he was nominated last April, Groves did not take office until July because Senate Republicans held up his nomination.

Many Republican senators raised concerns that Groves would apply statistical modifications to account for what some studies have shown to be an underrepresentation of the poor and certain ethnicities in the census.

In his testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee during his confirmation hearings, Groves said he would not use any arithmetic adjustments in the census.

“Statistical adjustments will not be used for redistricting,” Groves said at the time.

During the early 1990s Groves worked as an assistant director at the Census Bureau. During that time, Groves argued for the implementation of statistical adjustments in the census because millions of people were undercounted in the 1990 enumeration.

Lisa Neidert, a senior research associate in the University’s Population Studies Center and a former colleague of Groves, said he has proven his critics wrong.

“A lot of people were skeptical of the fact that he’s a statistical expert, a sampling expert,” she said. “People were worried that the Census was going to be making up people. He has quieted all of the people who were against him in Congress. They are now realizing how good of a job he’s doing.”

As director of the Census Bureau, Groves said one of his primary objectives is to raise awareness about the Census and to encourage people to fill out their census forms. Groves was featured in both Time Magazine and The Washington Post and taped a segment for “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” to promote the Census.

“A lot of my life right now is trying to get the word out,” Groves said.

On campus, the Institute for Social Research and the Office of the Provost have been spearheading efforts to encourage students to fill out the census. The offices sponsored a contest for students to produce videos that encouraged student participation in the census.

The University’s chapter of College Democrats won the competition and received a $1,000 prize. With 13 entries, Neidert, who co-chaired the competition, said that though none of the videos have gone viral, the competition was a success in terms of raising awareness.