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Video related to this article is available below.Issue date: 4/22/08 Section: News
U. to make 'campus climate' data public
Nandanie Khilall
Next week will mark an important milestone in minority student groups' continued push toward a comprehensive assessment of campus climate at Penn.
Campus climate - which refers to individuals' levels of comfort at Penn in terms of their gender and gender identity, race, sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity - has been an important issue for minority student groups for at least the past 10 years.
And despite frustration at what some see as a delayed response from the University, climate-related survey data from 2006 will finally be released at the University Council meeting on April 30.
Now, after years of a perceived deadlock, the administration is ready to publicly discuss climate on campus.
Climate heats up
Campus climate has been on the agenda of Penn's Pluralism Committee, now called the Diversity and Equity Committee, for the past decade. The issue has been receiving more attention recently, following several incidents that took place on campus.
In 2003, a black associate faculty master was arrested and pepper-sprayed by police while attempting to deliver donated bicycles to the Quadrangle. The incident caused outcry among members of the minority communities at Penn, who cited bias-based racial profiling as the reason behind the arrest.
Discussions of the incident eventually led to the formation of the subcommittee on campus climate, which helped to bring a campus climate specialist from Penn State University, Sue Rankin, to advise the committee and the administration.
Rankin offered to administer a survey assessing student comfort at Penn, but the administration showed little interest, citing cost and survey fatigue as the reasons, according to LGBT Center director Bob Schoenberg, who has been an active supporter of campus climate issues at Penn since he began working here 25 years ago.
However, things looked brighter in 2006 when, as a member institution of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education - an organization that conducts surveys at its 31 member schools - Penn registered to take part in a senior-exit survey the group was offering, which included questions pertaining to campus climate.
Campus climate - which refers to individuals' levels of comfort at Penn in terms of their gender and gender identity, race, sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity - has been an important issue for minority student groups for at least the past 10 years.
And despite frustration at what some see as a delayed response from the University, climate-related survey data from 2006 will finally be released at the University Council meeting on April 30.
Now, after years of a perceived deadlock, the administration is ready to publicly discuss climate on campus.
Climate heats up
Campus climate has been on the agenda of Penn's Pluralism Committee, now called the Diversity and Equity Committee, for the past decade. The issue has been receiving more attention recently, following several incidents that took place on campus.
In 2003, a black associate faculty master was arrested and pepper-sprayed by police while attempting to deliver donated bicycles to the Quadrangle. The incident caused outcry among members of the minority communities at Penn, who cited bias-based racial profiling as the reason behind the arrest.
Discussions of the incident eventually led to the formation of the subcommittee on campus climate, which helped to bring a campus climate specialist from Penn State University, Sue Rankin, to advise the committee and the administration.
Rankin offered to administer a survey assessing student comfort at Penn, but the administration showed little interest, citing cost and survey fatigue as the reasons, according to LGBT Center director Bob Schoenberg, who has been an active supporter of campus climate issues at Penn since he began working here 25 years ago.
However, things looked brighter in 2006 when, as a member institution of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education - an organization that conducts surveys at its 31 member schools - Penn registered to take part in a senior-exit survey the group was offering, which included questions pertaining to campus climate.
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