On Feb. 20, students received an invitation in their email to participate in a campuswide climate survey.
The survey includes topics of alcohol use, sexual harassment, stalking, dating violence, sexual violence and more.
All participation for this survey is voluntary and anonymous.
Jesse Brown, dean of students and Title IX coordinator, said that he would like to know how to better handle how students report sexual misconduct on campus.
The intent of the survey is to gain an understanding of students’ perception of the climate surrounding sexual misconduct on campus and how the university responds to it.
The survey is estimated to take 30 minutes at most. However, not all questions will be relevant to the participant and no questions are mandatory.
Junior Personnel Assistant (PA) Mariah Williams said that people don’t think about sexual misconduct on a Christian campus and that the conversation surrounding such a topic is lacking.
Earlier this year Williams sought the help of the Title IX office.
“I can't sit here and let it happen to other women in the future,” Williams said. “To me it wasn't about protecting myself anymore. It was about protecting future women that he would encounter.”
Brown said his number one priority is students feeling that they will be believed if they come forward with their own story about sexual misconduct on campus.
The survey will remain open for two weeks.
Skip Trudeau, vice president for student development, said that they would like as many students to participate as possible in order to gain the most reliable data.
At the conclusion of the survey, the Title IX committee will review the data collected and use it evaluate how education around consent is being handled. This includes places like Residential Life, the Counseling Center, Campus Police, Taylor’s Athletics, student programming and senior leadership teams.
Trudeau said the results will be used to pinpoint any big issues that the university is missing.
The information learned is meant to overall influence a response as a university.
“My hope is that it can shape the way we talk to students, it can shape the way that we do student leader training, it can shape the way that we talk about sexual misconduct consent on campus,”Brown said.
This survey comes at no additional cost to Taylor through Administrator Researcher Campus Climate Collaborative (ARC3), a third party collaborative research initiative.
This survey is unique from the past two that were conducted back in 2015 and 2017, which were internally produced.
This research team of professionals was formed in response to the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault to develop free campus climate surveys for the higher education community.
All participants will be entered into a drawing to receive one of 100 Airband tickets. However, it is important to note that the survey tool will generate a list of participants without any connection to individual’s personal responses on the survey.
If students would like to talk further about any content concerning the survey, Brown encourages that they reach out to him, Residential Life or the Counseling Center with any questions, concerns or comments.
