Robert Groves, director of the U.S. Census Bureau, presented to a packed room of graduate students and faculty in Mann Hall on Monday about the recent summation of the 2010 census.

The U.S. Census, which formally ended on Sept. 8, is a major campaign undertaken every ten years to calculate the abundance and distribution of people living in the United States, according to Groves.

According to Groves, the main purpose of the census is to correctly represent the U.S. population.

“I say this all the time,” said Groves. “What I want is to count every resident once, and only once, and in the right place.”

Groves said the census has never been able to completely count every single individual in the United States, due to factors including illegal immigration.

“Since no one has an exact number of undocumented immigrants in this country we are actually going to report several different statistics in this census,” said Groves. “As statisticians, we are excited about this, but we are probably the only ones who are.”

Groves, whose presentation was hosted by N.C. State’s Department of Statistics, focused mainly on the design of the census, the collection of accurate data, and the various factors that affect the data collected.

According to Groves, the process started in November 2009 with the creation of a list of names and addresses of people who need to be contacted. Of those people contacted, approximately 72 percent of them returned the initial mailed survey, an increase from the 2000 census.

Groves said he contributes this increase to multiple factors including the shortened length of the new census, efforts to cross language barriers, and the efforts to work with communities to increase participation.

“Not only is this census much shorter than any other, it is the first year we have included bilingual forms and language assistance guides, which have helped to increase participation by at least 2 percent,” Groves said.

Although 2 percent may seem trivial, Groves said for every one percent increase in participation, at least eighty-five million dollars are saved. In the current economy, Grove said the Census Bureau is under a lot of stress to minimize costs.

“This is by no means a cost efficient process. It takes a lot of money to complete,” said Groves. “It takes a lot of money to hire people to collect this data, print and distribute surveys, and to run a publicity campaign to increase participation.”

Groves said that while the census is expensive, it has a very important purpose.

 ”If you want to inform people about the current situation in the U.S., you have to have objective, nonpartisan information,” said Groves. “It is important for people outside the field of statistics to know that this census provides that crucial data.”

Sujit Ghosh, professor of statistics and co-director of N.C. State’s statistics graduate program, said graduate students in statistics are required to attend at least fifteen events like that of Groves’, though other colleges within the university were contacted.

“The graduate students in statistics receive credit for coming to this event, but we also sent out information to other colleges about this presentation to hopefully bring in more students,” said Ghosh. “We had a lot of interest from CHASS.”

For those students who are studying statistics, Groves said it is important for them to understand and delve into the process of completing the census since it is one “massive logistical exercise” in statistics.

“A talk like mine reinforces these students’ choice of study, and it gives them a sense of the application of statistics in the real world,” said Groves. “This was a huge project, and is one that also changes political power.”

Groves said he describes statistics as a field often overlooked and underappreciated.

“No one thinks about bridges until they fall down,” said Groves. “Statistics is like that.”

Dr. Steven Townsend, director of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, said statistics will be further discussed and celebrated this Wednesday in front of the SAS building, where there will be events honoring the inaugural “World Statistics Day.”

“This is a product of the United Nations, of which the United State is a part,” said Groves. “This is a first for the world.”