The IHP has a strong history of looking internally to assess its strengthens and weaknesses. Since 2011, we have asked questions about the school’s climate and the perceptions of various constituent units (faculty, staff, students) on their feelings around value, inclusiveness, and relationships.
But one question remained: Were we getting comprehensive information from all our constituents in a timely and organized way?
In 2016, a task force of the Diversity Council (now called the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council) was formed to examine this question. Each year, the IHP engages in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Great Colleges to Work For” survey. The survey provides extensive data about how faculty and staff feel about campus climate issues, and the task force decided a separate set of questions was not needed for those audiences.
To solicit more comprehensive input from students, the task force developed a series of questions to more fully measure student perceptions. After being piloted to a small group of students, a process that included multiple iterations of changes and improvements, the Diversity Council approved the survey. To ensure every student has an opportunity to participate, a calendar for assessment was developed surveying students at the mid-point of their education. Below are the results from the 2017 Diversity and Climate survey.
Overall, 140 students out of 446 completed the 27-question anonymous survey, a 31% response rate. Program participation varied from 8% to 41%. Quantitatively, there was little variation among programs. The comments section yielded many responses that helped inform the quantitative data. After reading all the responses, a few themes stood out. Let me say that this is by no means a qualitative study of the data, but rather my perceptions of the data after reviewing it several times.
First, several of the suggestions have already been addressed or are in the process of being implemented. For example, we have created an anonymous feedback form where students can voice a complaint or concern. Another frequent comment was the need to hire more faculty of color. This issue is included in the Institute’s new Strategic Plan, and we will be developing a detailed strategy to achieve that goal.
Most troubling to me were the comments that suggested some students feel little will be done with the evaluations they provide. We hope to change that perception by developing a process to communicate and address concerns, ideas, and recommendations.
Many students commented on their relationships with their professors. Some felt their professors were supportive, engaged, and interested in their success, while others sometimes felt talked down to by professors, disrespected by their preceptors, and unable to engage in intellectual discourse with faculty.
Some comments focused on improving the course content on multiculturalism, diversity, and racial identity while others focused on course sequencing, interprofessional experiences, and facilitating conversions about social issues in the classroom.
A few students commented on the difficulty they felt fitting into the IHP. Those who identified themselves as older than the average student, had family responsibilities, children, or were working in addition to going to school commented on their inability to feel engaged and welcomed. Some students talked about having difficulty because of political ideology or beliefs, and others felt unable to openly discuss issues of social justice or share their perspective because of feeling misunderstood or chastised for having an opinion that is different from their peers. Still others commented about feeling the effects of racism on campus and the inability to have open conversations about how race and health intersect.
But the largest number of responses focused on relationships with other students. While many appreciated the diverse perspectives and support from their peers, some students said that they did not always feel comfortable in class and at the Institute. Consistent with the above comments, some students felt that they just did not fit in because they held opinions that different from the majority view. Others felt belittled or afraid to speak up for fear of irritating others in class. Also, some students described a lack of opportunity for informal/social meetings that they felt would help build relationships and foster constructive conversation.
The survey results provide numerous insights into ways we can improve our curriculum, our relationships, and our ability to create an open, safe, and respectful environment. Now, the most important part: what will we do with these data?
First, each dean and program chair have received the data for their respective department or school. The Provost, the Associate Provost, and the Dean of Students and Alumni received a full report on all the data. The Institute leadership will discuss these results with their faculty and make recommendations for change where appropriate. The data also will go to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council for review and recommendations. Student leadership serves on the DEI Council and will be there for this discussion.
Since this was the first time using this instrument to measure diversity and climate in students, we will use these data as a baseline measurement for the data collected in the 2018 year and beyond. As each year’s data are collected, IHP leadership and the DEI Council will review them in light of information from the prior year(s).
Please reach out if you have any questions about the survey, the quantitative or qualitative data, or issues of diversity and inclusion at the IHP. I look forward to hearing from you.