MAJOR CENSUS RESEARCH CENTER
OPENS AT BARUCH

Baruch College’s School of Public Affairs has become the site of a rich lode of research data available to scholars through the U.S. Census Bureau. An inaugural celebration on May 4 at which Baruch President Kathleen Waldron formally welcomed C. Louis Kincannon, director of the U.S. Census Bureau, marked the formal opening of the New York Census Research Data Center (NYCRDC), a major collaborative effort involving several prominent East Coast universities.

Baruch College, Columbia, Cornell, The City University of New York system, Fordham, NYU, Pace, Princeton, Rutgers, the University at Albany–SUNY, Stony Brook University– SUNY, and Yale are all members, along with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the Russell Sage Foundation. The NYCRDC is operated in partnership with the Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies. Only eight other RDCs operate nationwide.

The U.S. Census Bureau collects a wide variety of data on population and business enterprises, large and small. Through the NYCRDC, the bureau makes available nonpublic microdata files in a secure environment to researchers whose proposals have met the Census Bureau’s rigorous criteria. The research based on this wealth of material is expected to provide important insight on changes in the U.S. economy and society. By law, all RDC research must also help the Census Bureau improve its household or business surveys and the statistics generated from them. The RDCs provide access to uniquely detailed information on employment, poverty, housing, manufacturing, trade, and other U.S. economic conditions.

Dr. Rosemary Hyson, an economist, is the administrator for the NYCRDC at Baruch. Hyson is an employee of the Census Bureau and will assist researchers in developing proposals and accessing data and will ensure that no confidential information is disclosed. Public Affairs Professor Sanders Korenman serves as executive director and will conduct outreach activities and work with other RDC directors to promote the goals of the program.

The NYCRDC will complement the recently announced CUNY-wide Institute for Demographic Research, which will also be housed at Baruch’s School of Public Affairs. CUNY’s plans to “cluster hire” 10 demographers over the next four years signal a commitment to population studies across the length and breadth of the university. Dean David Birdsell points out that the research interests of several Baruch College faculty members, including Korenman, Neil Bennett, Ted Joyce, Janet Gornick, and Robin Root make Baruch an obvious choice for a center for population studies. He expects at least one additional demographer to be hired at Baruch this year.

The proximity of the School of Public Affairs Survey Research Unit, which monitors public opinion and policy issues, will enhance and enlarge the work of the demographers, social scientists, and statisticians working at the NYCRDC and the Institute for Demographic Research. Birdsell notes that this triad of research groups will create scholarly synergies and have “a kind of vigor and intellectual power that would be impossible to equal” in other settings.

—Zane Berzins