University of South Florida (Tampa)
PAE-7: Measuring Campus Diversity Culture

Each college within the university has a structure in place, often in the form of a diversity committee or workgroup, that serves to assess attitudes about diversity and uses assessment results in to shape future programs, policies, and initiatives. One example of an assessment administered by The College of The Arts (CoTA) is the College-wide Diversity Climate Survey. In the fall of 2007, the College of The Arts’ Faculty Advisory Council (FAC) and the Diversity Advisory Workgroup (DAW) held a meeting to consider how to address retention and diversity issues regarding under represented faculty and staff. A representative from the University’s office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity (DEO) also attended this meeting to ensure diversity policies were being upheld by both groups. At this meeting, members of both the FAC and DAW decided to expand the DAW membership to include representation from the FAC. The DAW is now comprised of faculty and staff from all units in the college; it incorporates the elected membership of the FAC, the appointed membership of the original DAW, and the expressed interest of additional faculty and staff who participate in the expanded DAW group. In the discussions of a means to identify and understand the questions of retention for the college, it was suggested that the college conduct a diversity climate survey. The Group worked with DEO to develop two survey instruments for the task. One survey instrument was administered to Faculty and the other administered to Staff. Both surveys were administered in April and May of 2008 with responses sent by the individual faculty and staff to the DEO office for summarization. Once the DEO office had summarized the data, members of the DAW developed the attached report drawn from these summaries. Response rates to the survey were: 53% response from staff 31/58 and 40% from faculty 53/131. A campus wide survey was administered in 2002 (see: http://usfweb2.usf.edu/eoa/documents/ccs_exec_summary.pdf

After reviewing the analysis and recommendations of the Climate Survey provided by the DEO, the members of the DAW remain committed to finding ways of making the CoTA a place of inclusiveness, dignity, and respect; and it will continue to create climate surveys to make sure the voices of all faculty and staff are being heard. The DAW plans to continue efforts to bolster the participation of faculty and staff in addressing diversity issues through mentoring programs, workshops aimed at raising awareness of diversity and its needs, and celebrating how our diversity is reflected throughout our College programs and community.