Colorado State University
PA-5: Assessing Diversity and Equity

Every two years Colorado State University conducts a comprehensive Employee Climate Survey that is administered to all faculty and staff members, both on campus and off. Another survey is administered to a representative sample of students with over-sampling for underrepresented groups. The faculty and staff survey is administered by CSU’s office of Institutional Research, Planning & Effectiveness using Qualtrics. The survey tracks a comprehensive set of issues related to workplace satisfaction, equity, and work life balance as well as diversity and inclusion topics such as discrimination and harassment experiences, accessibility, and training and interactions on campus around diversity and inclusion. The student survey is administered through Skyfactor (EBI) and addresses important issues such as sexual assault, campus response to bias incidents, campus accessibility, student perceptions and interactions about diversity and inclusion, and student learning on these topics. This is a national survey that gives CSU the ability to benchmark against other institutions. Results of the survey are widely shared with the campus community in the form of presentations, reviewed by campus leadership to set strategic goals and objectives, and posted publicly.

Overall, results provide an encouraging picture of employees’ perceptions. The majority of participants responded positively when asked about their department/unit diversity culture, sense of belonging, perceptions of CSU, and respect. Although still somewhat favorable, leadership’s accountability and favoritism were two of the survey’s themes with relatively less positive overall results. Further, state classified respondents, respondents from a minoritized race/ethnicity, transgender/non-binary/gender non-conforming respondents, and women respondents had less favorable responses on average. When examining perceptions over time, CSU has shown significant progress since 2014 and 2016 in respondents’ perceptions of CSU and their Department/Unit. Notably, 80% of 2018 respondents agreed to the item “CSU encourages discussions related to diversity” compared to 63% in 2016. In 2018, 71% of respondents agreed they would recommend their department/office as a place of employment compared to only 56% in 2016. The 2018 response rate nearly doubled from previous administrations, increasing from 26% in 2014 to 30% in 2016 to 58.5% (n= 4,058) in 2018. The increase in respondent numbers for 2018 provided richer data that better represents employees at CSU and allowed for more meaningful comparisons by subgroups. Recent examples of the assessment shaping policy, programs, and initiatives: • Creation of a specific intersectionality report from the data to help break down complex data sets into easier-to-understand charts and graphs with detail to help individual units and departments develop action plans • Sessions at Diversity Symposium specifically targeted to issues identified in the intersectionality report (i.e. support for Trans community members, gender equity, class, etc.) • Launch of the CSU Community Engagement Scholarship Awards program, to be conferred annually in recognition of exemplary engaged scholarship by CSU faculty or academic staff members and their community partner(s) • Faculty and staff networking opportunities to build community among engaged scholars across campus

Survey results for the faculty and staff Campus Climate Survey are posted publicly on the Vice President for Diversity website, a series of presentations are conducted by VP for Diversity staff to discuss the results, and multiple committees including Faculty Council, State Classified Personnel Council, and the President's Commission on Diversity and Inclusion use the results to set goals and objectives, including strategic plan initiatives for the campus community. Survey results for the student campus climate survey are publicly posted on the Vice President for Student Affairs website and presentations are shared with a number of groups on campus to share the results and engage in discussions. The Vice President for Student Affairs Counsel, Student Diversity Programs and Services Offices, and multiple other committees on campus use the results to set goals and objectives, including strategic planning initiatives.

The Student Campus Climate Survey results can be found at http://studentaffairs.colostate.edu/resources/current-students/. In addition to the Campus Climate Survey, multiple other assessments and reports are generated on campus including equity pay studies, accessibility reviews, and in-depth analysis for specific underrepresented groups.