Climate Assessment
The Mosaic Project Campus Climate Survey was administered in the spring of 2014 to all students on the Danforth Campus.
Research has demonstrated that students’ perception of their campus environments impacts their academic and developmental outcomes, and that experiences of discrimination or bias can negatively impact student success. As such, the survey asked questions regarding how comfortable the university is for students, students’ interactions with faculty, staff and peers, and students’ experiences of discrimination on campus.
Context
The Mosaic Project was convened by Chancellor Mark Wrighton in the spring of 2013 to examine issues of diversity, and to try to identify concrete ways in which the campus could be made more inclusive. Eight different working groups were created to address various aspects of the student experience. The Assessment and Benchmarking group, consisting of university undergraduates, graduate students, staff and faculty performed an internal audit of diversity-related programming and data within the university and also looked at best practices among peer institutions. It became clear that a campus climate survey specific to these issues would be informative to the university community as a whole, and would allow the university to assess progress over time.
Survey Structure
After a series of demographic questions there were 12 questions related to diversity and inclusion on campus. Responses were analyzed to assess how individuals with different identities perceive the university climate. The survey questions attempted to represent as many different identities as possible; however, in analyzing results, some categories needed to be collapsed to ensure statistical power.