2001 NYAAPOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNER:

Kenneth Prewitt

The Honorable Kenneth Prewitt was Director of the United States Census Bureau from October 21, 1998, until January 20, 2001. Nominated by the President, he was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He joined government service following a career in higher education and private philanthropy.

From 1995 to 1998, he served as the President of the Social Science Research Council, a position he also held from 1979 to 1985. For ten years he was Senior Vice President of the Rockefeller foundation, where he directed the international Science-Based Development program involving activities in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

He served for five years as the Director of the National Opinion Research Center, based at the University of Chicago. He taught for fifteen years at the University of Chicago, and for shorter periods, taught at Stanford University (where he received his Ph.D.), Columbia University, Washington University, the University of Nairobi, and Makerere University (Uganda). He will now join the New School University in New York, where he will be the Dean of the Graduate Faculty.

The Director of the Census Bureau heads an agency that produces an extensive array of economic and demographic statistics for the nation -- including basic data on consumer prices, labor force participation, poverty, housing conditions and many other dimensions of our economy and society. Dr. Prewitt managed a large staff of economists, statisticians, demographers, and survey experts. His main attention was on the operations of Census 2000 -- often described as the largest peacetime mobilization in history.

Managing a budget of approximately $7.5 billion and a permanent and part-time decennial staff that at peak was more than 500,000 persons, Dr. Prewitt had overall responsibility for ensuring that 281.4 million residents were correctly counted. His duties involved numerous appearances before the U.S. Congress, cooperation with other federal agencies, dozens of press conferences and related media events, and hundreds of meetings with officials and stakeholders across the country. He was especially concerned with public confidence in the census and, more generally, with promoting Census 2000 as a major civic event.

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