Taking the census (or count) of a population is an enormous task, one that takes months of planning and a diverse and resourceful workforce. Just ask Dr. Gillian Stevens, director of the Population Research Laboratory (PRL) at the University of Alberta, who is overseeing the Métis Settlements Census taking place from May 25th to June 5th. "Fortunately", says Gillian, "the PRL has been able to draw on the abundant talents of undergraduate and graduate students in the Faculty of Arts to make this project a success."
Chris Langlois (BA, 2008) and Caitlin De Smit (BA, 2015) sort material into boxes for the Métis Settlements Census.
There have been many different tasks to coordinate. One of the first tasks was to launch a marketing strategy to generate awareness among residents in each of the eight Métis Settlements about the upcoming census. An accurate census is critically important because it is used to make decisions about the future needs of these Settlements. If residents refused to open the door because they didn't recognize why the enumerators were there, vital information would be lost.
To get the message out, the PRL had to come up with a brand for the census that would be prominently displayed in all promotional materials. An effective logo should be informative, visually appealing and culturally relevant. Enter into the picture Dr. Bonnie Sadler Takach, a professor in the Department of Art and Design, and students enrolled in her undergraduate design class. Treating the project as a valuable opportunity to interact with a real client, students were asked to create and then present their concept to members of the Métis Settlements Council who would choose the winning design. The Council considered 17 designs in total before selecting the work of Jamie Craig (shown here).
As a third-year undergraduate student, Jamie Craig approached her concept with two goals in mind: to encourage people to participate in the census and to celebrate Métis culture. "I drew on familiar Métis symbolism," Jamie says, "such as the infinity symbol, in order to evoke a strong sense of community." Cleverly, the infinity symbol also doubles as the number eight to represent the number of Settlements. To draw the viewer in for a closer look, the infinity symbol contains within it more elements highlighting Métis culture.
The PRL also hired a team of technical assistants to travel to the Settlements to work with locally-hired enumerators. These technical assistants will build relationships with the administrative office in each Settlement, collect completed census forms and check that no area is overlooked in the census. Chris Langlois, who graduated from the University of Alberta with a BA in 2008, works as a Research Coordinator at the PRL and had a hand in training the technical assistants. Many of the technical assistants are undergraduate students in the Faculty of Arts, including Caitlin De Smit, who is graduating with a BA in Criminology in June (see story - Caitlin De Smit ). She has learned a lot from her placement experiences at the Elizabeth Fry Society and the NOVA program run by the John Howard Society, but can't wait to get an upfront experience of a Métis Settlement. "My university education has taught me to appreciate diversity, and to want to better understand the different backgrounds that people come from."
Others, such as Iris Hoiting, who also has close connections to the Faculty of Arts, sees a different set of benefits in her role as technical assistant. Iris, who came from the Netherlands to study with professors in the Department of Sociology and then stayed, is thrilled about the opportunity to see past the numbers she crunches in the lab and to meet the people behind the data. "Being out in Buffalo Lake working closely with the enumerators, and finding myself in the community," she says, "allows me to keep me connected with the people-side of research, which I really enjoy and which is a great addition to my quantitative background."
Iris Hoiting takes a selfie from the field.