Equity office to conduct campus climate survey
By: Caitlyn Freeman, Editor in Chief
Towson University’s Office of Inclusion and Institutional Equity will conduct a survey to gauge the current campus climate.
Starting on Oct. 31, a survey will go out via email to the TU community, and reminders will be sent out during the survey period, a university spokesperson said in an email.
“We encourage our entire campus community to participate, as it will help us continue to build a learning and working environment in which everyone feels welcome, safe and respected,” Patricia Bradley, Vice President of OIIE, said in a statement Thursday. “The opinion of every student, faculty colleague and staff on our campus matters, and we want to hear from everyone.”
The survey is part of the university’s Diversity Strategic Plan, “A More Inclusive TU: Advancing Equity and Diversity (2020–25).” The survey aligns directly with the university’s evaluation and assessment goal.
Matt Palmer, a TU spokesperson, said the university has never conducted campus-wide diversity climate surveys but intends to use the results of the current one to set a baseline for future surveys.
In the future, the university plans to do staggered surveys where they canvas a specific population every three years. With this plan, staff would be surveyed again in 2023, faculty in 2024 and students in 2025.
Palmer said the survey is expected to take 15 minutes to complete, and responses will be anonymous.
