Editor’s note: This letter was published in the May 17 issue of the Daily Bruin and was not put online until May 22 because of a production oversight.
I wanted to clarify some inaccuracies in the May 16 editorial, “UCLA should release full survey results.” The editorial claims that UCLA has only released two brief reports about the Diverse Learning Environments survey. In fact, a detailed, 63-page report about the Diverse Learning Environments survey, which describes all of the variables used and includes comparisons with other University of California campuses’ results, has been posted on the Student Affairs Information and Research Office website since May 9, a week before the editorial was published.
Moreover, although the editorial claims that UCLA has not publicized the results of the survey, we have shared the results with students and other stakeholders on dozens of occasions, including through presentations to the UCLA Undergraduate Students Association Council, Community Programs Office organizations, the Council on Diversity and Inclusion, the Council of Student Affairs Directors and the Office of Residential Life, to name just a few.
In addition, the Student Affairs Information and Research Office and the Intergroup Relations program have, in four academic quarters, offered a Fiat Lux seminar using the Diverse Learning Environments survey data as a framework for discussion of campus climate and student experiences at UCLA.
It is true that we are unwilling to provide the entire raw data set for the survey as requested by the Daily Bruin, but we have compelling reasons for this. Neither UCLA nor any other UC campus provides raw survey data because they may include response cells so small that we run the risk of identifying individual students and thus violating their privacy. Had the Daily Bruin requested it, we would have been happy to provide aggregate data on specific areas of interest from among the topics the survey covered.
Janina Montero
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs