Robert M. Groves, director of the U.S. Census Bureau and former director of the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan, will present the 7th Annual W. J. Usery Distinguished Lecture at 2:00 p.m., April 15, 7th floor Seminar Room of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. Entitled “What is Quality? Government Statistics and the Larger Social Science World,” Groves will discuss the 2010 Census operations and the use of census statistics in making decisions.

Map of racial and ethnic divisions in Atlanta - Census 2010 data/Base map © OpenStreetMap, CC-BY-SA - by Eric Fischer. Red is White, Blue is Black, Green is Asian, Orange is Hispanic, Yellow is Other, and each dot is 25 residents.
The following are some of Groves’ publications as well as others exploring the importance of Census data for policy decision making and social research:
- Nonresponse in Household Interview Surveys, by Robert M. Groves
- Surveying victims: Options for conducting the National Crime Victimization Survey, by Robert M. Groves
- Groves, R. (2010). 10 Questions. Time, 175(13), 2.
- Wallman, K. K. (2010). Federal statistics: Understanding a crucial resource. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2010 631(1), 22-24.
- Cook, C. C., Bruin, M. J., Yust, B. L., Crull, S. R., Shelley, M. C., Laux, S., & … White, B. J. (2009). Evidence of a housing decision chain in rural community vitality. Rural Sociology, 74(1), 113-137.
- Anderson, M., & Fienberg, S. E. (1997). Who counts? The politics of census taking. Society, 34(3), 19-26.