A recommendation by the Chancellor’s Workgroup on Sexual Violence Prevention, Education and Advocacy led to the formation of a committee that will work to create a campus-wide, anonymous and confidential survey.

This extensive survey will assess gender-based violence, alcohol, safety and other issues on the Syracuse University campus, according to an SU press release. Climate issues affect different people in different ways, so a committee is useful to maximize the likelihood that most people’s concerns are addressed, said Libby Barlow, SU assistant vice president for institutional research and assessment and co-chair of the committee, in an email.

“We want to be sure our learning, living and working environment is as inclusive as it can be,” Barlow said.

The Climate Assessment Planning Committee has 14 members and will work with Rankin and Associates, a consulting firm that specializes in educational institutions in assessing campus climate, to develop questions that will best retrieve the desired data, the release said.

In addition, the consulting firm will also provide intervention strategies to improve issues, according to company website.

The results of the survey will be made available to the public, said Bea González, dean of University College and a member of the committee.

The committee is currently reviewing questions that Rankin and her team have used in other climate surveys, and selecting the ones that best fit the culture and language at SU, as well as creating a few of its own, González said.

While Rankin and Associates is helping the university identify issues, its role as a consultant is to “facilitate the projects process,” but ultimately the project is directed and owned by SU, said Susan Rankin, principal of Rankin and Associates Consulting, in an email.

The survey is not mandatory but students, faculty and staff can expect to be asked to participate in the about 30-minute-long survey in February 2016, González said.

In order to have an anonymous survey, González said it will go through Rankin and Associates’ housed severs in its research center, but it is not known yet where students, faculty and staff will get a hold of it.

Rebecca Reed Kantrowitz, senior vice president and dean of student affairs and co-chair of the committee, said she believes that this survey will help people’s voices get heard.

The university needs at least 30 percent participation for the finding to be valid. Because of this, Kantrowitz said she hopes that it is an important enough issue that people will want to take the survey, but the committee is considering incentivizing people to get them to respond. What the incentives will be are not yet known.

“The survey is an important and necessary step to take in order to become the best institution possible,” Kantrowitz said. “We want to look at what everyone’s experiences are and work to make them better.”

Published on November 4, 2015 at 9:51 pm

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