Just a few months after Colorado College closed its survey on sexual misconduct, the results are in—and so far, the data is looking even better than some expected.
During second semester of the 2014-2015 academic year, CC, along with the rest of the nation, received instructions from the White House to host a sexual misconduct climate survey. The college had not done a climate survey in years.
The data results describe the survey as: “a campus-wide survey to determine the extent of sexual misconduct on campus as well as student impressions about reporting and their satisfaction with college policies and processes for complaint.”
After launching the anonymous online survey, faculty, and staff, including CC’s Title IX Coordinator Gail Murphy-Geiss, established incentives to encourage students to take the survey in hopes of reaching a 50 percent response rate.
Earlier this Block, when the data went public, the numbers showed that 934 people completed most of all of the survey. Despite the fact that more women responded than men, and that CC didn’t hit that magic 50 percent response rate that makes for a truly representative sample, the college believes that this pool was large and varied enough to be considered representative.
“Even though there’s more women than men who answered this, if you look at it, more than one third of the respondents were men, which is fabulous for a topic that’s been more of an interest to women,” said Murphy-Geiss.
The breakdown of participants was 287 males (32.7 percent), 582 females (66.3 percent), and nine gender-queer students (1.0 percent).
Other factors that were included in the demographics section of the survey included race and ethnicity, financial aid status, year in college, sexual orientation, major division, and region in which the student lived.
Although some students were alarmed by some of these questions, the motive behind inquiring these demographics was simple: the college wanted a representative sample in a number of ways.
“We don’t care what majors people actually are but I was more interested in the divisions of the college,” said Murphy-Geiss. “For example, in the sciences sometimes you’re staying late at lab or in theater if you have to practice, you can’t access Campus Safety all of the time.”
Questions of this nature were intended to see if students felt safe walking back to their college residence late at night. Other questions sought to determine how easy it would be for students to return home at any given time.
“I know that students were concerned that we were asking what state they were from and that we would then be able to identify them, but that was not the point,” said Murphy-Geiss. “The point was to see how far you were from home, to see if you could drive home if you were ever really stressed or in trouble.”
Highlights of Significant Data
Safety and Respect:
• When asked about feelings of respect and safety both on and off campus on a scale from one to four, students gave the highest scores for feeling respected by professors (average M = 3.78), feeling safe on campus during the day (M = 3.90), and feeling safe in class (M = 3.93). Off-campus parties (M = 3.22) and being on campus at night (M = 3.32) were where students felt the least safe.
• When respect and safety were broken down by gender (male, female, or queer), data shows that males felt more respected by students (M = 3.55) than did females (M = 3.38) and queer students (M = 3.00). Males also felt safer both on and off campus as well as online.
• When respect and safety were broken down by race, students of color reported feeling safer at night (M = 3.48) than did white students (M = 3.29).
Familiarity with school policy, procedures, and resources:
• When asked about their familiarity with CC’s management of sexual misconduct on a scale from one to four, students said that they were most familiar with the active consent policy (M = 3.53) and counseling services offered for victims (M = 3.32). The lowest means were given for counseling services offered for perpetrators (M = 2.42) and for knowing the formal CC complaint process (M = 2.66).
• Variation in awareness of the sexual misconduct policy was statistically significant when broken down by financial aid status. The highest awareness among students corresponded with those who were on full aid (M = 3.14) and the lowest with those who had no aid (M = 2.87). Those with partial aid fell in between the two means (M = 2.93).
• When asked an open-ended question about if students know one confidential resource, 86.2 percent of students provided an answer that was considered correct. Students answers included, but were not limited to: a friend, the director of the Wellness Center, a family member, the counseling center, the SARC, or Tara Misra, the former SARC, by name (n = 326).
Opinions about the climate around sexual misconduct at CC:
• When asked to rank their opinions on a scale from one to four, students felt most strongly about CC taking sexual misconduct seriously (M = 3.47). CC supporting reporters (M = 3.46), intervening (M = 3.05), CC acting against offenders (M = 3.27), CC prohibiting retaliation (M = 3.14), and students supporting reporters (M = 3.15) were also all topics CC students felt strongly about.
• Students gave the lowest mean scores when asked about: feeling like there is nothing they can do (M = 1.73), there being a stalking problem at CC (M = 1.84), students stigmatizing reporters (M = 2.17), and being involved (M = 2.18).
