Just one week after the DePauw Dialogue, the results of a 117-question survey that was sent out to faculty and staff during the fall of 2015 were released for the campus, faculty and staff to see.
Because there were so many questions, the answers needed to be condensed into what the administration viewed as the highlights. Those highlights were--and continue to be--discussed in a series of five meetings held with faculty and staff, the second of which was held on Tuesday. The survey was meant to be anonymous; even so, about one third of the people surveyed identified themselves.
Then, faculty and staff broke up the responses to the survey questions based on whether the participants identified as male or female, and whether they were nonwhite or white. The responses to certain questions were vastly different between different demographics.
“These numbers certainly paint different experiences,” said Vince Greer, the assistant dean of students for diversity and inclusion.
When asked if they would leave DePauw if a similar job opportunity was available, 48 percent of female faculty said they would leave DePauw if they could, while only 38 percent of male faculty responded in this way.
“I think that, often times, women faculty end up doing the ‘women’s work,' which is doing the social and emotional things,” said Professor of Psychology Pam Propsom.
When asked the same question, 60 percent of nonwhite faculty and 68 percent of nonwhite staff said they would leave DePauw if they could, while 39 percent of white faculty and 30 percent of white staff said they would take another job. Part of this large gap stems from the different locations that nonwhite and white faculty live in. More nonwhite faculty and staff live outside of Greencastle.
“To live in a community where you go to stores and they treat you like dirt is just taxing,” said Clarissa Peterson, professor of political science.
When asked if they felt there was an appreciation of multicultural and international communities on campus, only 13 percent of nonwhite faculty felt that it was appreciated, while 43 percent of white faculty felt that it was appreciated.
“On this campus, we don’t really operate in a way that we support each other,” Peterson said. “We have conversations that undermine some of our colleagues. We need to create a curriculum that embraces culture, and I think there are so many things we need to do as a university to make us a more inclusive environment so that we don’t keep seeing these trends.”
When asked if they agreed that there was a sense of community on campus only 27 percent of female faculty and 20 percent of nonwhite faculty agreed, while 38 percent of males and 36 percent of nonwhites agreed.
“This is because we have two different communities on campus: white and nonwhite,” Peterson said.
At the end of the survey, there were some open-ended questions to provide more feedback on campus climate.
“There is a sense, among both faculty and staff, that the institution is trying to do too much, and as a result, we are losing focus on the things that we do well,” said Renee Madison, senior advisor to the president for diversity and compliance.
There is a year-long plan in place to try to better campus climate for faculty and staff over the next few years.
“It’s concerning, but we want to make sure that the community is aware and we are having conversations about this,” Madison said.
However, in years prior, there have been similar surveys on campus, but there is still a lack of satisfaction on campus from different groups of people. This raises a question among faculty and staff about whether there will be significant changes put in place.
“We seem to be systematically, every five years or so, asking the same questions, finding out there are some issues to attend to, and nothing ever happens to them. So I think that is part of the frustration,” Propsom said.
“We need to do more doing,” Peterson added.
“Now is the opportunity to build off this information and put together corrective actions to hopefully improve those numbers,” Greer said.
The remaining three meetings to discuss the survey results will be held on on April 20, 21 and 25.