Campus Climate Surveys: Invaluable Tools for Strengthening Community (and Compliance, Too)
The current attitudes and behaviors of an educational community’s students, faculty, and staff are more important than ever, with federal and state mandates around sexual misconduct climate surveys and the increasing obligations campuses face under Title VI. Campus climate surveys–both for sexual misconduct and your general community–are invaluable tools for this work. This session will provide a foundational understanding of both types of climate surveys that capture data on engagement, success, and belonging for campuses to strengthen their communities and meet the shifting landscape of compliance demands.
Learning Outcomes:
- Understand the basics behind campus climate surveys and the difference between what is measured in a general community campus climate survey and one specific to sexual misconduct
- Articulate what makes a strong climate survey for your specific community and how to evaluate instruments and what modules should be included in your own surveys
- Describe how to take the findings of your assessment and create meaningful action for specific communities and the campus as a whole
Meredith M. Smith, JD, MS Ed
Senior Vice President
Rankin Climate
Meredith Smith spent a decade working in Title IX and nearly two decades in higher education administration overall, serving as the Title IX Coordinator for the University of Virginia and the Assistant Provost for Title IX and Clery Compliance and the Sexual Misconduct Response/Title IX Coordinator at Tulane University. Meredith is a founding member of the Administrator Researcher Campus Climate Collaborative (ARC3) and works for the Victim Rights Law Center as a Department of Justice Violence Against Women grant consultant. She has participated in the Office on Violence Against Women roundtable on sexual violence adjudication and the American Bar Association’s recommendations on college sexual assault investigation and adjudication. She contributed a chapter to Addressing Violence Against Women on College Campuses (Temple University Press, 2017). She was also a guest editor of The Society for Public Health Education’s journal Health Education & Behavior‘s 2020 journal supplement on college sexual assault policy and prevention. She is currently serving on a National Science Foundation grant on sexual misconduct climate surveys. For her work on the Tulane Sexual Misconduct Climate Survey and subsequent culture change initiatives, she was honored with a 2019 Visionary Voice Award from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. Meredith has a BA (magna cum laude) in English-Creative Writing from Miami University, a JD from The Ohio State University, and a MS Ed in Administration and Policy from Northwestern University.
