By Heather Fabritze
News Co-Editor
The Office of Diversity and Inclusion hosted a virtual town hall on Feb. 1 to share the results of the annual campus climate survey, which tested the psychological temperature of the Washington College community in 2023.
The report, according to its introductory statement, comes as a step in the College’s five-year plan for pursuing excellence in DEI. The data collection and subsequent assessment survey their progress in achieving their other outlined goals.
It also allows students, faculty, staff, and administrators to share their individual, anonymous perspectives on the experiences that they have had at WC.
Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion Dr. Alisha Knight spearheaded the effort, promoting the survey during its open period between Oct. 16 and Nov. 3. She shared the results at the hour-long town hall and provided minimal interpretation of how they could be used in the community.
However, she stated that she hoped attendees would take the time to read the report in full and define their own reactions — including using the data to “inform” their work here at the College.
“I’m inviting you to take some time this afternoon during this session to be willing to grapple with some challenging ideas that you may find in the results,” Dr. Knight said. “When we think about feeling uncomfortable…it’s worth exploring that a bit as you’re thinking about your feelings, and certainly to accept discomfort as necessary for growth.”
A majority of the questions in the survey were featured on its first iteration last year. On the whole, Dr. Knight believed that these comparative questions did not show much difference.
For example, while there was a notable increase to 528 respondents this year, most of them remained satisfied with their experience at the College. There was also no significant change in sense of belonging in the community in answers to the statement,
“I feel like I belong at Washington College.”
One of the first shifts that Dr. Knight highlighted was in response to the faculty-only comment, “My diversity-related research/teaching/service contributions have been/will be valued for promotion or tenure.” While there was a three percent increase in faculty members who agree with this statement, still, only roughly one-third of them believe this to be true.
“[This] suggests there’s an opportunity for the Provost’s Office and for the Tenure and Promotion Committee to develop some clear guidelines about how diversity, equity, and inclusion work is evaluated at tenure and promotion review,” Dr. Knight said. Other comparative questions had more overtly positive implications. “I feel valued by students” saw a 19% point increase from 2022 — and the portion of responses in strongagreement grew from 24% to 68%.
Students who feel that they have “opportunities for academic success that are similar” to their peers also increased from 38% in strong agreement last year to 45% this year. Similarly to the DEI and tenure question, though, the campus climate results raised a few concerns regarding relationships between groups in the community. While the statement, “I feel valued by the faculty” saw a 3% increase in agreement overall, the specific demographic breakdown indicated that staff and administrators’ answers went down in agreement by four points. 17% of this group felt strongly valued by faculty in 2022, but in 2023, this group shrunk to seven percent.
“There are ways in which we can look at this data and think about, are there opportunities there to do some more work on the relationship between faculty and staff,”Dr. Knight said.
This year’s survey introduced multiple questions that were not included in the first iteration, all of which indicate new information about the campus environment. This includes the revelations that only one-fourth of respondents believe problems with race relations are rare and isolated incidents; over three-fourths disagree that not talking about race is effective in improving race relations; and more people than not would recommend the College to various affinity groups, although there is a notable split between agreement and disagreement.
A new question that Dr. Knight highlighted was, “Have you felt the need to hide your social or political beliefs while interacting with someone on campus?” Responses were evenly split with a slight lean toward yes, they have felt the need to, although there was no follow-up question to elaborate on what these beliefs entailed.
In conjunction, only 1% of community members stated that they would engage in a heated debate on issues that they disagreed on, indicating a lack of active engagement in strong expression of opinions on-campus.
“When you think about this, the impulse to hold back and hide one’s political or social beliefs, there’s something not congruent there,” Dr. Knight said. “And again, it’s worth having further conversations to understand what’s happening.”
The final section of the survey allowed for respondents to fill in a blank question with additional comments. Only 14.5% took advantage of this, with their top concerns relating to leadership and communication from administration, the Title IX process, and a lack of diverse viewpoints at WC.
According to Dr. Knight’s assistant senior and Elm staff writer Piper Sartison, not only will the results raise awareness of these persisting issues, they will be presented to the Office of Admissions to “gain a heightened understanding on the community’s stance on belonging.”
“I believe that every individual here on campus deserves to voice their own opinion on how they feel they’ve been treated here at WC…Progression starts with initiative to evoke change and the Diversity & Inclusion Campus Climate Survey is a start in creating a more inclusive climate here at WC,” Sartison said.
Dr. Knight emphasized a similar sentiment on inclusion during the town hall, of wanting this report to become part of a greater movement toward excellence in DEI at the College.
“These surveys are just one piece of the campus climate assessment puzzle. We need data from multiple sources,” Dr. Knight said.
She is anticipating other ways in the future that this progression can continue — focus groups, individual conversations, and large group conversations to “think about how we can always keep working on improving our campus climate.”
The full report for the 2023 campus climate survey is available on the SharePoint for the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, which can be accessed through Microsoft Outlook.
Photo Caption: The campus climate survey looked at the Washington College community as an entirety.
Elm Archive Photo