This editorial contains an error. UCLA recently released a report comparing the results of its campus climate survey to responses from other campuses. Part of the argument made in this editorial no longer stands.
UCLA has yet to release a full series of reports from a two-year-old campus climate survey – even though the university said its analysis was expected to be published at the beginning of 2013.
It is imperative for the university to make good on its word and release reports in a timely manner so that the original mission of the Diverse Learning Environments survey – to take an in-depth look at the state of campus climate – is completed.
This board also thinks it would be conducive to release a single overarching report that covers a larger variety of topics and compares survey responses from different groups on campus.
The campus climate survey was originally conducted around the time of the inflammatory “Asians in the Library” video, and since then several instances of racial or sexist vandalism have occurred on and off campus. Further, a report from last fall alleging that UCLA considered race in the admissions process ignited protests and forums about the campus environment.
After these incidents, some student groups argued for the need to improve campus climate. But without concrete data, it is impossible to accurately gauge whether there is in fact a far-reaching problem with students feeling marginalized on campus, and which specific groups of students have had negative experiences.
UCLA officials said they would begin tackling this problem two years ago when they started the survey, but the urgency with which they once approached this problem seems to have since lessened.
Campus spokespeople told the Daily Bruin that one reason for delaying the results is the small size of the department handling the survey. However, UCLA is a research institution with a large statistics department and several other research groups capable of helping with the data analysis.
Releasing both a series of reports and a comprehensive report now would be an act of good faith on UCLA’s part and would represent the university’s continued commitment to tackling issues of campus climate.
Nearly 7,600 students took the survey, demonstrating a clear interest from the student body in the results of the survey.
The next step for the university is to work on publicizing the results as they are released to the student body. On Wednesday, as part of a weeklong Diversity Symposium, there was a presentation held on campus specifically to discuss the initial results of the survey, but not a single student attended the event.
UCLA must now make an effort to finish compiling the survey results and be more proactive in reaching out to students. Only by knowing more about campus climate can we as a university move forward to create an environment where events like those mentioned above occur with less frequency.