Dear CU Boulder community,
Last fall, we announced a campuswide undertaking to gain a greater understanding of the perspectives and experiences of students, staff and faculty at CU Boulder. The purpose of the Campus Culture Survey was to gather insights and identify strategies to better support the recruitment, retention and success of all students, staff and faculty.
Survey response rates were strong, with 73% of staff, 59% of faculty, 48% of graduate students and 30% of undergraduate students responding to questions about sense of belonging, connection and community, feeling valued and respected, and about experiences with discrimination, hostile treatment and protected-class harassment, including sexual harassment.
Beginning today, you can for addressing the challenges that are impeding our ability to create and sustain a more inclusive campus environment for everyone at CU Boulder.
As you review the survey results, please do so with intention and care. While high-level results may present one narrative, they can obscure the perspectives of marginalized members of the community who, according to recent and previous campus assessments, experience the impacts of inequities and institutional barriers to a greater degree. Only by going beyond high-level groupings can we reach a deeper understanding of the campus鈥檚 diverse community of communities and the lived experiences of fellow students and colleagues.
While the survey results reveal significant opportunities for growth at CU Boulder, they are only the beginning. Most importantly, they will provide baseline markers against which we will measure the impact of ongoing and new campus initiatives. They will also provide the means of moving forward through dialogue, action planning, measurement and a mutual understanding of how to confront inequities.
A key component of our next steps is empowering campus leaders to effect positive change by engaging in action planning with staff DEI consultants from the office of Senior Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Sonia DeLuca Fern谩ndez. The survey results, the five DEI goals inspired by the IDEA Plan and other resources and initiatives will guide this collaborative work. Over the coming months, staff consultants will lead workshops and unit-specific discussions for action planning, assessment and proposal writing.
Thank you for participating in the survey. The unique perspectives, voices and experiences of students, staff and faculty shape the campus environment and define who we are as a diverse community, and the takeaways and insights we glean from the survey results will help us all to do better and to be better.
Sincerely,
Philip DiStefano, Chancellor
Russell Moore, Provost
Patrick O鈥橰ourke, COO