This week, all Dartmouth students will be invited to take a climate survey on sexual assault and sexual misconduct to evaluate the College efforts to foster a healthy, safe, and nondiscriminatory campus environment.
All undergraduate and graduate students will receive an email with an individual link to the web survey form, which will be available from April 2 through 23. Conducted in collaboration with the Association of American Universities (AAU), the survey is part of the ongoing effort by the College to understand the extent and effect of harmful behavior on student experience, says Heather Lindkvist, Dartmouth’s Title IX coordinator and Clery Act compliance officer.
At a Jan. 29 address laying out his Moving Dartmouth Forward initiative, President Phil Hanlon ’77 announced plans for two campus life surveys—the climate survey on sexual assault and sexual misconduct set for April, and a Dartmouth-only survey of students, faculty, and staff to be conducted next fall. The Dartmouth survey will focus on broader questions of campus climate.
The April survey will take about 20 to 30 minutes to fill out the questions on the site, administered by the social science research firm Westat, Lindkvist says. All students’ responses will be confidential. When the web form is completed, any links with the student’s name, email, and IP address will be broken so that no one will be able to connect the answers to an individual, she says.
“We want to hear from as many students as possible, even those who may feel that these issues don’t affect them,” Lindkvist says. “The survey will enable us to assess the prevalence of sexual assault and gender-based harassment at Dartmouth, which means that every response is crucial. The results will ultimately help strengthen current prevention and intervention efforts, enhance existing resources, and guide College policy.”
The survey includes sections that ask about students’ knowledge and beliefs about social situations, perceptions related to sexual misconduct at the College, and knowledge about resources available at Dartmouth. The survey also asks about personal experience with sexual misconduct such as harassment, sexual assault, and other forms of violence, Lindkvist says.
Dartmouth anticipates sharing aggregate results from the survey with the Dartmouth community in fall 2015. The AAU will release a report with the consolidated results from all 28 universities in the U.S. and Canada that are participating in the climate survey this year.
Students with questions about the survey can contact Lindkvist at titleix@dartmouth.edu, call the office of the Title IX coordinator and Clery Act compliance officer at 603-646-0922, or visit the Sexual Respect website.