Here's a message to the campus community from Brian W. Kuster, Vice President for Enrollment and Student Experience:
The 2020 Census work began this month, marking the 24th time our country has counted its population since 1790. It’s vital that we educate ourselves, and our students, how Census data touch our individual lives. From the way in which legislative districts are drawn and the number of seats allocated to each state in Congress to revising school district boundaries, funding fire departments and roads, locating businesses, and planning for hospitals and nursing homes, it infiltrates our personal and professional lives in substantial ways – guiding how more than $675 billion in federal funding gets distributed each year.
We each have a constitutional responsibility to participate in this incredibly important count. Most of you have participated in at least once Census previously. However, the 2020 Census will be the first for most of our students, so we are asking for your help communicating with them in order for WKU to best support an accurate local count. The good news is for the first time, responses can be made online, making completion easier than ever before.
It’s important to know that students who live on campus will be automatically counted through WKU Housing & Residence Life and do not need to take any other action. Students who live in off-campus housing – such as a rental apartment or house – need to respond to the Census. Residents should work together to fill out one questionnaire per household, including everyone who lives in the household.
What about students moving home due to the COVID-19 pandemic?
Even though we are in a transition of moving students out, the Census Bureau has clarified that colleges and universities are still considered the primary residences (students should be counted as living there). Specifically, per the Census Bureau’s residence criteria, in most cases students living away from home at school should be counted at school, even if they are temporarily elsewhere due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
View the full statement from the U.S. Census Bureau
.
WKU has created a
website
to help guide our students through this process, which again, is the first time for most of them. We appreciate any efforts our faculty and staff can take to help them understand the process and participate appropriately.
