$500; Modern Language Association Support the Census: Small Grants for Language Instructors

Town-Gown Support for Schenectady's Hardest to Count Communities
Project Leader: Megan M. Ferry, professor of Chinese and Asian studies and chair of modern languages and literatures

The members of the modern languages and literatures department at Union College will work in conjunction with its undergraduate student social justice and community engagement club, the Union College Activist Network (UCAN), community partners, and Schenectady's 2020 Census Complete Count Committee to increase census awareness and participation. Schenectady has been identified as one of the Hardest to Count (HTC) Tracts in the nation with a 58.8%-70% household response rate and poor internet access. The project team will coordinate outreach activities with the HTC communities, will use longstanding connections with community leaders in Schenectady to identify the specific language needs of the communities and to host community awareness events, and will communicate through speakers or flyers in the identified target languages.