Climate Surveys as Tools to Achieving Diversity, Inclusion and Equity

As the country confronts racial justice following the killing of George Floyd, educational institutions face race-based discrimination and harassment claims against faculty or within student populations. These complaints—while potentially devastating to an institution’s reputation—offer an opportunity to examine campus culture and how you can address latent, systemic issues, or informal complaints based on race, gender and sexual orientation that could lead to unrest. In addition to investigations into specific complaints, climate surveys can help institutions discover potential problems before they rise to the level of formal complaints or litigation, and generally improve equity and inclusivity on campus.

Topics include:

• Best practices for using climate surveys
• The importance of privilege in the process
• How to address anonymous complaints
• How climate surveys differ from investigations 
• What institutions can hope to accomplish through this process, and 
• How to message the outcome of a climate survey to students, alumni, board members, and the general public