Alternatives to Unit-Level Climate Surveys

Prepared by L&S DEI Committee Co-Chair Lori Lopez, October 2023

For the most detailed info, here’s a video of a presentation on this topic from the Diversity Forum - So You Want to Do a Climate Survey  

Here are some of the problems with conducting a climate survey in your own unit: 

• Survey fatigue - Sending out too many surveys negatively impacts participation in all surveys, especially in campus-level climate surveys that are important for setting campus DEI initiatives  
• Quality of participation - Participants who are very passionate about DEI issues may be less enthusiastic about filling out a survey than participating in a more interactive conversation  
• Lack of depth - At the unit level, the data may not show helpful or actionable patterns  
• Mechanical delivery - Broad surveys cannot communicate tone or nuance, both in how questions are asked or what responses are shared. Also harder to convey how seriously the responses are being taken or how they will be followed up.  
• Affirms known issues - You likely already know many pain points in your unit, which just get repeated in climate surveys  
• Time consuming - Properly administering a survey takes months of planning and effort that could stall progress  
• Analysis paralysis - You can be more efficient in moving from identifying the problem to determining and implementing solutions.   

Here are some of our suggested alternatives to conducting a climate survey in your unit.  First, assessing the vast amount of data that already exists: 

• See this resource: Campus Climate Data Action Toolkit
• Campuswide climate surveys: Student climate survey from 2022, Staff climate survey from 2021, Faculty worklife survey from 2022 
• General demographic info of your units, available in the Repository of Administrative Dashboards and Reports (RADAR) 
• Student-specific metrics like time to degree and graduation rates (from Academic Planning and Institutional Research) 
• Employee-specific metrics like performance reviews and retention information (from Human Resources Information Systems) 

And second, collecting new data about your unit in a careful and targeted way: 

• Facilitate a listening session with specific audiences (faculty, staff, grad students, undergrads). This helps units collect perspectives in a safe space, and invites participation in coming up with solutions.  See this resource: How to Conduct a Listening Session
• Host a town hall with presentations from unit leaders on DEI efforts. This helps share out on in-progress work while also initiating dialogue and receiving feedback.  
• Conduct focus groups or 1:1 interviews with small cohorts/individuals, such as those who are most impacted by DEI efforts, who are particularly engaged and interested in DEI topics, or whose voices have not yet been included or heard.