The recent diversity survey that was sent out to students came back with reportedly poor results.
Regina McManigell Grijalva, associate professor of English, said the results of the survey sent out by the diversity council Dec. 4 were considered poor because only 30% of faculty and 17% of students responded.
Joey Croslin, vice president for human resources, said the council has not actually received the results from the survey yet.
“All that we have received are the response rates, and we did hope for higher rates from students,” Croslin said.
Amy Ayres, vice president for student affairs, said the response rates from our students were actually higher than other institutions.
“We had a 17% response rate from OCU students, and the average from peer institutions was only 16%,” Ayres said.
The diversity council is made up of mostly administrators who meet to discuss diversity on campus. Grijalva is a member of the policy and data committee, a committee made up of volunteers who meet and analyze the data the diversity council receives.
Grijalva said the council decided to put together a survey to send out to students and faculty on campus, asking about their opinions on diversity.
The diversity council decided to use an external company called Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium and use their Diversity and Equity Campus Climate Survey to collect data.
“The thinking, having a third-party company do it, was really having the best intention, and that was because they didn’t want anyone to think that there was anything underhanded about the data collected,” Grijalva said.
Grijalva said she had several faculty members approach her and say they were concerned because the questions were very personal and specific, and they thought they could be easily identified.
“I had to assure them, because this is what I heard when I was at committee meetings, that the reason they had the external company was because they wanted people to know that everything was going to be reported generally. So, for example, they would just say like 20% of the people that answered the survey were above 40, and 30% of people were male or female, so that people doing the survey wouldn’t be identified,” Grijalva said.
Grijalva has been an assessment report reader for nine years and said there are so many good resources on campus with trained faculty and staff, there might be a better, more efficient approach to surveying OCU on diversity.
“I know there are lots of different ways that you can do studies of people’s perceptions of diversity, inclusion and equity on campus,” Grijalva said. “Let’s say 20% of our campus identifies as a minority, and you send out a survey to everybody, you’re going to still have 80% of the campus that is not diverse, and so you might not even get the answers from people who are minoritized.”
Grijalva said she thinks there are other methods that might better survey the campus such as studying specific focus groups or using faculty who are trained in research and know their survey group to create the survey.
“I think it’s amazing that we are doing something; I just don’t know if it’s the best method to spend our money on,” Grijalva said.
Croslin and Ayres are both members of the diversity council.
“The diversity council identified engaging in a climate survey as one of our shorter term priorities that we could do reasonably soon to get some input on the perception on our campus community on diversity and inclusion on campus, perception of our policies and maybe any experiences that have been going on around campus,” Croslin said.
Croslin said they also thought it was a good idea to do the survey to give the new vice president of diversity and inclusion a solid starting point.
“We did have a conversation at our November council meeting about launching the survey and what the appropriate time frame would be for that survey, whether it would launch prior to the holidays or after the holidays,” Ayres said.
Ayres said the council will not have all of the data back until the end of March.
For those who did not take the survey, or would like to see the questions asked, reach out to Grijalva at ramcmanigell@my.okcu.edu.
For the editors’ opinion on the survey, see the online editorial.
Leave a Reply