Sunday night as I was surfing through my alerts when I discovered several articles discussing the Census and Residence Halls. I sent out a message on twitter and got a great response. Here is the response I got from Lynn Ellison, Res Life professional extraordinaire.
On Sunday, I noticed the following tweet from Jeff: “I’m seeing several articles about Dept of Res Life offices promoting the census. Is that happening on your campus?” Several of us responded that we were taking an active role in disseminating information about the census to our students and encouraging participation. Then Jeff asked a question I couldn’t answer: have we as a profession always been this active in the census?
I posted a very informal poll on my facebook status and was reminded that in 2000, when I worked at UNC-Chapel Hill, we had our RAs distribute the census information to the residents personally. I have absolutely no memory of this – I suspect that I don’t remember because I wasn’t exposed to a near-constant stream of census information as I am today. This year it seems, as Joe Biden would say, like a big deal.
A lot has changed in marketing and social media since 2000. Remember: the concept of “social media” is a fairly recent development. Facebook didn’t even exist until 2004 (and then it was only open to a few select schools). Cell phones were just starting to tip into common usage (I was literally the only one on my staff with a cell phone in 2000).
Now, thanks to social media, we’ve all become part of the Census Bureau’s marketing campaign. How many of your connections posted updates when they completed their census form? And did you feel compelled to complete it and then “tweet” it? I sure did. One of my facebook friends works for the census bureau and posted a reminder on her status. She received several comments that said “done!” We can even track census participation through http://2010.census.gov/2010census/take10map/. Thanks to this report, I know that Dubuque City, IA has the highest participation rate at 73%. We won’t talk about Texas’ participation rate.
All this to say – I think universities may be just as involved in facilitating census participation this year as in years past. We just hear more about our efforts thanks to the pervasiveness of social media.
