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Draft shows progress
 Media Credit: Jason Risberg Sue Rankin presents the preliminary results of the Student Government Cultural Diversity Assessment survey to students, faculty and staff in the Atwood St. Croix room Monday.
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The first draft of the latest cultural assessment of SCSU has been completed, indicating good signs as far as bias against minority groups on campus is concerned.
The draft of the assessment, undertaken by Rankin and Associates, was discussed on campus Monday. Sue Rankin, a consultant from Pennsylvania, met with several focus groups on campus, including Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Services, Student Government, the Student Life and Development office, university administrators and the Faculty and Staff of Color Caucus. Rankin also held an open forum for all students, faculty and staff.
Rankin met with the groups in order to gather information and opinions on the draft before perfecting it. The final report is expected to take several more months.
Rankin was on campus in the spring to conduct surveys and interviews. There were 812 respondents to the assessment survey. The number comprised faculty, staff, administrators and students.
Presenting the results at the open forum, Rankin said there was good news in that more than 60 percent of the respondents indicated that the university administration addresses issues of racism and bias based on sexual orientation and gender. Furthermore, 67 percent of the respondents felt that a comfortable climate exists on campus, while 57 percent agreed that there was “visible leadership” fostering diversity on campus.
However, 240 of the respondents said that they had experienced some form of harassment on campus. Almost half of the respondents also stated that they had witnessed some form of harassment on campus.
Rankin said that despite the views of the majority of respondents that the campus addresses bias issues, there was still some concern among respondents.
“There are still 240 people who reported being harassed,” she said, “and this is what we have to be concerned with.”
There was no clear group that was targeted for harassment. Rather, there appeared to be harassment across the board where students, faculty, staff and even administrators were concerned. The harassment, Rankin said, mostly occurred because of racial bias.
Harassment statistics were consistent with surveys done at other institutions of higher learning. However, one statistic was different: 27 percent of the student respondents said they were harassed by fellow students, but 13 percent said they were harassed by faculty members.
“This (harassment by faculty) is higher than what I’ve found elsewhere,” Rankin said.
One of the necessary steps for improving the cultural climate on campus was having committed top leaders, something Rankin said SCSU had.
“I’m telling you, I would not be sitting here (at the open forum) if there wasn’t committed leadership, in this case, Student Government,” Rankin said.
Rankin and Associates was hired by Student Government last year.
Student Government, meanwhile, is not surprised by the initial findings of the assessment, but is happy with the way the report has progressed.
“All in all, I’m as pleased as I thought I would be,” said Brett Sween, Student Government president. “It’s pretty much what I expected. I’m confident what’s going to come back (the final report) is what the students, faculty and staff want. That’s all I could ask for.”
Student Government will be discussing the first draft of the assessment at its weekly meeting today. Several of its members were disappointed that Rankin would not be at the meeting. Unfortunately, the consultant teaches a class at Pennsylvania State University every Thursday. Presenting in her place will be the Cultural Assessment Committee, formed as an independent entity to Student Government to look into the issue of diversity on campus.
The next step after the completion of the report, Sween said, was to decide how to move forward.
“I hope everyone understands and takes the assessment as it was intended and start moving forward (to try to solve the problems),” he said.
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