All Syracuse University students, along with college students nationwide, must participate in the 2010 U.S. Census, a survey distributed once every 10 years.

SU students received an e-mail Wednesday that explained the data collection process for students on and off campus. All students who live in university housing, including residence halls and South Campus apartments, will receive the census questionnaire from the university. Students who live off campus will receive the census form via mail.

The United States Census Bureau will work with SU and other colleges and universities for the next two months to ensure all students are included in the 2010 census.

The census ultimately takes a snapshot of the country at a point in time to determine representation in Congress and the allocation of more than $400 billion in federal funding, said Laura Walbon, a partnership specialist with the United States Census Bureau. SU is one of 91 colleges and universities statewide to actively partner with the Census Bureau to help obtain student information.

It is important for students living on and off campus to fill out the form because it determines how much money the Syracuse community receives, Walbon said.

“Nine months out of the year the students are living in that community, relying on public transportation, roads, hospitals, campus safety, that kind of thing,” she said. “It’s allocated based on those numbers. If people aren’t counted where they’re at on campus, the community of Syracuse might not receive its full amount of funding.”

Questionnaires will be passed out in all residence halls with a designated spot for students to drop them off, said Diana Napolitano, government relations associate in the Government and Community Relations Office. The questionnaire has seven questions, according to the e-mail sent out to students Wednesday.

A primary concern of the Census Bureau is to ensure off-campus students fill out the questionnaires as well. It is easy to distribute them to students on campus, but it is much harder to make sure that students who live off campus collect the form from the mail, fill it out and mail it back, Walbon said.

“We want to make sure students on and off campus are counted,” Walbon said. “The students who live in off-campus housing are hard to reach out to.”

The mail forms will be sent out across the country between March 13 and 17. Representatives from the bureau will be in the off-campus community at the end of April going to houses from which they have not received a questionnaire back. Normally the follow-up would not begin until May 1, but representatives want to make sure they connect with students before they go home for the summer, said Dave Walsh, the local Census manager.

Census representatives will also be on both Main and South campus, alerting students of the importance of filling out the form during April, Walsh said.

Kristen Kuhles, a local senior partnership specialist with the Census and the community liaison between the Census Bureau and SU, said a table was set up in the Schine Student Center on Feb. 24 and 25 to inform students about the upcoming Census. Only about 50 to 100 students stopped by the table, she said, which had promotional materials to give to students. Kuhles said she hoped to talk to more students but understands they are busy going to class and do not often stop at tables.

The university’s responsibility is to deliver the forms to students in university housing and collect them. If students do not fill out the forms, Census representatives will go the Registrar’s Office to obtain student information from the directory, said Maureen Breed, the university registrar.

Under the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, students can request that their directory information be kept confidential at all times. If students have previously made this request, their information will not be shared with Census officials, Breed said.

Included in the university’s directory information are a student’s e-mail address, current and permanent address, phone number, home college, major, dates of attendance, full/part-time status, class year, academic awards and honors, and athletic participation, according to the Registrar’s Web site. Not all of this information is relevant to the Census, but the officials will have access to any of that information they may need, Breed said.

In order to ensure that college students are not counted on both their own Census form and on their parents’ form, there is a note on the top of the mail forms saying not to include children who do not live at home for most of the year.

Published on March 10, 2010 at 12:00 pm