Population poll comes to campus
Fourth-year international development studies student Brian Chiu (left), a census education outreach coordinator, and Assistant Director Melany dela Cruz (right) work with the U.S. Census Bureau to spread the word about the census to students and encourage them to participate.
By Neha Jaganathan
March 30, 2010 9:22 p.m.
It’s not going to determine the next president. It won’t change marriage laws. There aren’t debates and campaign posters.
But the 2010 Census still has a large national impact, and students and other members of the campus community are promoting student participation in the census with just as much fervor.
Most notably, the census, which is conducted every 10 years and is already under way for 2010, determines the lines for congressional districts as well as the distribution of federal funding.
“The census only happens every ten years, so we live with these results for a decade. … The census isn’t as dramatic (as elections), but the implications are even greater,” said Rob Kadota, assistant director in the Office of Residential Life.
Kadota is working with the Undergraduate Students Association Council to encourage students to partake in the census.
Caitlin Toombs, director of Student Vote and assistant external vice president in local affairs for USAC, is pairing the campaign for students to be counted in the census with voter registration efforts before the upcoming June primary.
She said the Census campaign will really be in full force by April 5, when a forum on the Census will be held at the James West Alumni Center with a number of city officials and staff.
The Office of Residential Life will be distributing census forms to resident directors, who will then give them to resident advisors to pass on to dorm residents.
Gift certificates and other incentives will be used to encourage students to return the form by a deadline of April 8.
Kadota, who is hoping for a 100 percent return rate on the forms, said ORL previously hosted employment testing programs in February that allowed students to take a test in order to be employed by the Census Bureau.
While individual departments and offices are partaking in the census process this year, the Asian American Studies Center has been a partner of the U.S. Census Bureau for several years.
The center is 40 years old and one of four ethnic studies centers at UCLA. In addition to being a census information center, it is also responsible for conducting research and publishing journals.
Melany de la Cruz, assistant director of the Asian American Studies Center, said the Center has been working with the U.S. Census
