Take the survey! Your input matters.

Help us to better understand and address these issues for our campus communities.

All CU Boulder undergraduate and graduate students are invited to participate in the 2024 Sexual Assault and Related Harms Survey

Check your CU听inbox for a unique survey link

Survey opens听Oct. 22 and closes Dec. 1

Complete the anonymous survey, and you will听receive a $10 deposit to your Buff OneCard 鈥� or donate the funds to the CU Boulder听Basic Needs Center or the Graduate Student Emergency Aid Fund to help fellow Buffs

麻豆视频 the Survey: A Message to Students

Understanding how sexual assault, sexual harassment, abuse in intimate relationships and stalking impacts the campus community is critical to CU Boulder鈥檚 ability to address these harms for current and future students. Your participation in this survey 鈥撎齟ven if you have not been directly impacted 鈥撎齪rovides invaluable data that can help CU Boulder implement better prevention programs and support services for students.

CU Boulder administers this survey every four years and works to ensure end-to-end privacy for participants. When you submit your survey responses, the survey software (Qualtrics) removes your email address, IP address, and location.

After completing the survey, you will be eligible to receive $10 in Campus Cash deposited to your Buff OneCard to thank you for your time and participation. You can also choose to donate the cash to one of two student funds to support fellow Buffs: the听CU Boulder Basic Needs Center or the听CU Boulder Graduate Student Emergency Aid Fund.

Regardless of your choice, when you submit your survey responses, you will be redirected to another webpage completely disconnected from the survey, where you can submit your email address and student identification number to claim your compensation or donate it to a student fund. This two-step process protects the privacy and anonymity of all survey participants.

By participating in the survey, you can help to ensure the university:

  • Understands the prevalence of sexual assault and related harms on and off campus
  • Captures data to improve prevention programs and support services for current and future students
  • Improves the university鈥檚 ability to address situations that negatively impact students and impede their ability to thrive at CU Boulder

Open to All Students

  • If you are an undergraduate or graduate student at CU Boulder, you are encouraged to participate in the anonymous survey.
  • You will receive a unique email with a link to take the survey anonymously.
  • The survey will include questions about incidents of sexual assault, harassment and exploitation, intimate partner abuse, and stalking both on and off campus.
  • Your input can make a difference while you are a CU Boulder student and help future generations of students who come to campus to pursue their academic and career goals.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • The Sexual Assault and Related Harms Survey is a campuswide initiative to gather information from undergraduate and graduate students about incidents of sexual assault, harassment and exploitation, stalking, and dating and domestic violence that have occurred on or off campus during a student鈥檚 time at CU Boulder.
  • The survey also asks participants whether they told a friend or family member, if they reported any incidents to police or the campus Title IX office, and whether students accessed confidential support resources.
  • In addition, the survey asks students about negative consequences they may have experienced if they indicate having been sexually assaulted.
  • The survey also asks about social factors such as sense of belonging and mattering, finding study peers, making friends and finding mentors to better determine the role that community plays in preventing sexual violence and buffering students from negative consequences when harm does occur.

  • The survey鈥檚 purpose is to gather reliable data that will help CU Boulder understand the prevalence of sexual assault and related harms, including how these experiences may differ based on aspects of a student鈥檚 identity, and how those differences may lead to different outcomes.
  • This information will help guide campus prevention efforts and measure the impact of those efforts.

  • All undergraduate and graduate students are invited to take the survey. There are small differences between the undergraduate and graduate versions to address the unique contexts and experiences of the two groups.

  • The campus is administering this survey to update CU Boulder鈥檚 understanding of the prevalence of sexual assault, harassment and exploitation, intimate partner abuse, and stalking happening to undergraduate and graduate students and to compare the results to findings from similar surveys administered in 2015 and 2021.
  • Tracking these issues over time can help the campus roll out new prevention initiatives and student services.
  • Through the survey, the campus will analyze whether social factors such as making a new close friend and ease of finding study peers are protective against sexual assault and its consequences.
  • The survey will also enable the campus to assess whether feelings of belonging and mattering can help buffer students from the negative impact of these harms on academic progress and mental health and well-being.

  • The campus will use the survey results to refine existing prevention efforts and to expand student programs and services.
  • The survey results will also provide the campus with information that can lead to better academic and social strategies to help reduce risk and associated harms
  • The campus will compare this year鈥檚 survey results to findings from 2021 and 2015 surveys.
  • A significant goal will be to look for changes from past years to better understand prevalence rates over time, especially how the COVID 19 pandemic may have led to reduced rates of sexual assault and whether those effects continue.

  • Beyond assessing prevalence, data from the 2021 and 2015 surveys have been used to understand the impact of sexual violence, to inform enhancements in prevention strategies, education, reporting systems, and support services with the overarching goal of enhancing campus culture.
  • Find out more about the initiatives and prevention efforts that have been implemented in response to the past survey findings.

  • Qualtrics, the software the campus uses to administer the survey, automatically encrypts survey responses and deletes participants' email addresses and location the instant they submit their survey responses.
  • In addition, the anonymous survey results are stored on a secure encrypted server hosted by OIEC.

  • Survey administrators will aggregate data in groups with 10 or more responses to maintain the anonymity of survey participants.
  • Should any demographic group or combination of group characteristics have fewer than 10 individuals, those results will not be reported.
  • Participant anonymity is the campus鈥檚 first duty of care and will be protected in all reports resulting from this survey.
  • CU Boulder is committed to ensuring that individuals can provide candid responses with confidence. Anything else is counterproductive to this effort.

  • No one will have access to private student data.
  • As a feature of the survey software, when survey participants have submitted their responses, their email address, location data and IP address are instantly erased.
  • Once the survey closes, campus staff trained to assess survey data will download deidentified datasets 鈥撯�� those stripped of private information such as email addresses, locations and IP addresses 鈥撯�� and organize and prepare them for analysis. Only the OIEC survey assessment team will have access to the deidentified datasets, and these data files would never be made available to any other CU employee or non-CU entity.

  • Qualtrics, the survey software, immediately encrypts survey data once a participant has submitted their responses, removing identifying details such as email addresses, locations and IP addresses.
  • In fact, survey responses are encrypted throughout the survey process, including when they are in the cloud, while they are 鈥渋n transit鈥� across campus servers, and while they are 鈥渁t rest鈥� on a secure server hosted by OIEC.

  • The campus will continue to administer the survey every four years to examine evidence of progress toward meeting the institutional goal of preventing and responding to sexual assault and related harms.

  • The survey administered by the CU Boulder Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance or OIEC will be open to all undergraduate and graduate students the week of Oct. 22 and close on Dec 1.

  • Previous administrations of student surveys at CU Boulder have seen high response rates prompted largely by outreach to students to ensure that:
    • Students understand the survey鈥檚 purpose
    • Participants are guaranteed anonymity
    • The data will be used to address problems and create accountability
  • The campus also shares survey goals with faculty and staff and asks them to encourage students 鈥撯�� for instance, by letting class out 15 minutes early or, if time and space allow, in the workplace 鈥撯�� to take part in the survey.
  • Students who complete the survey will receive a $10 Buff OneCard deposit or can donate the funds to the CU Boulder听Basic Needs Center or the Graduate Student Emergency Aid Fund.鈥�

  • Survey administrators anticipate sharing key preliminary survey findings with the CU Boulder community before spring break in March 2025.

  • Campus administrators anticipate sharing full survey results in April 2025.