2022 campus climate report released
In the fall of 2021, undergraduate students at SUNY Geneseo were invited to take part in the campus climate survey, a comprehensive questionnaire about their experiences at Geneseo. The survey included the kinds of peer and faculty interactions that students had, as well as how well students felt that they belonged and were supported on campus. This data was analyzed by the college and compiled into the Campus Climate Study Report, a publicly available, 51-page report containing the data collected from Geneseo students.
According to the climate report, the campus climate “entails the common beliefs, attitudes, and feelings about the institution held among its members, and how those translate into the ‘felt’ or experienced climate. A positive campus climate is closely tied to a student’s sense of belonging, with belonging being defined as the subjective identification and affiliation with the college community.” The report said that pursuing a positive campus climate was a driving force behind the idea to survey students. “One of Geneseo’s core values is belonging: welcoming a diverse campus community that supports and celebrates identities, promotes equity and inclusion,” said the report.
According to the report, the data is utilized throughout the year in order to improve Geneseo students’ college experience. When asked about their overall satisfaction at Geneseo, “students broadly expressed satisfaction with their experience at Geneseo, with 72% of students saying they were at least somewhat satisfied, compared to 20% of students who said that they were at least somewhat dissatisfied with their college experience.”
When collecting data, responses from students in several specific minority groups were collected and compared against other demographics. When researchers accessed data about the level of care and support these groups received from staff, they found that “approximately half of black students and 40% of trans/nonbinary students reported that they have little to no faculty or staff members who care about their well-being.” These are just a few of several statistics found in the 2022 report—the full report went into much further detail and strands into many distinct categories, including students of other ethnicities, religions, and gender identities.
The report concluded that, with the information contained in the report, Geneseo must take concrete steps towards improving upon the experiences of Geneseo students that said they have had inadequate or incomplete college experiences. The report has, “the ultimate goal to identify areas in need of improvement that can be translated into concrete strategies for change. Not only did we want to understand the experiences of the general student population, but we were particularly interested in examining how students’ various social identities impacted their experiences of the campus climate.”
The college committed to a multifaceted approach to improving the campus for all students, not just those who answered negatively in the survey. “Fixing the aspects of the campus climate that are harmful for minority groups requires a multifaceted and multilevel approach. By multifaceted, we mean the need to address multiple mechanisms that can lead to negative experiences and disadvantaged outcomes. By multilevel, we mean the need to focus on both the individual and structural levels. We must address the cultural prejudices and deeply held attitudes and beliefs of powerful groups in society who are also represented in our community, whose words and actions lead to students feeling devalued, marginalized, negatively labeled, stigmatized, discriminated against, or made invisible.”
According to the report, the survey was just the first of many steps in an ongoing process to continually improve SUNY Geneseo for both students and staff.
“This report is just the beginning of the process. Our committee aims to serve as a model and catalyst for change,” said the conclusion to the report.