I’ve never really understood what “campus climate” means, so I wasn’t completely sure what I was getting into when I took the University of California campus climate survey on Tuesday.
The UC Office of the President is trying to get 30 percent of the UC population – that includes students, faculty, medical personnel, etc. – to fill out the survey, so they can make improvements to campuses.
This survey is different from others that we’ve been asked to do as UCLA students because it is administered by the UC Office of the President to all campuses. UCLA, however, has asked for student feedback on the campus climate before, which I have not responded to – sometimes out of laziness, sometimes because I didn’t think I had anything relevant to say.
But I’m graduating from UCLA soon, so I figured I should probably take one of the surveys asking about my student experience before I leave school. It helped that students who fill out the survey are eligible for all sorts of prizes, like a $10,000 scholarship and an iPad.
I was also curious about the questions on the survey – I thought they might enlighten me about this vague “climate” term. According to the beginning of the survey, climate refers to “current attitudes, behaviors, and standards of employees and students concerning the access for, inclusion of, and level of respect for individual and group needs, abilities, and potential.”
Based on this definition and the survey’s 93 questions, I understood climate as a measure of my comfort level in my on-campus interactions, and how I perceive the comfort levels of others. It was easy to answer the questions that directly apply to me, like my opinion of UCLA’s climate for people of my ethnic minority. As a Indian, I’ve always had a positive experience on campus, not experiencing the prejudice or hate crimes that I’ve written about for the Daily Bruin.
But a lot of the questions were more difficult to answer, and brought up issues I haven’t thought about in the context of campus climate. For example, whether I think the climate is different for students who are socioeconomically advantaged or disadvantaged, or for religious students.
Students can skip questions they feel are confusing or that don’t apply to them, said Jesse Bernal, interim university diversity coordinator for the UC Office of the President. You have to answer at least half the questions to be included in the analysis and the prize drawings, he said.
As of last week, 17 percent of the campus had responded to the survey.
After the survey results are released, the UC Office of the President will require campuses to come up with items for improvement that they can implement in a year’s time, said Bernal.
“We’re trying to reassure everyone that responses aren’t going to sit on the shelf,” Bernal said. “We’re going to try to use this to improve the experience of everyone on our campuses.”
“To get someone to take a 20-minute survey where they don’t feel the immediate impact of the results is hard,” said David Bocarsly, a fourth-year economics student and the president of the Undergraduate Students Association Council.
I was one of those students, not easily convinced. But it concerned me that after four years at UCLA, I had to mark “don’t know” for so many questions that apply to other students, that this is the first time I’m questioning experiences other than my own or the ones I’m tasked to report on.
Maybe if I’d done one of those surveys I blew off for so many years, I’d have more answers now.
Have a suggestion for what Kohli should do next on campus? Email her at skohli@media.ucla.edu.