University survey gauges community attitudes and needs.
Sign promoting the Belonging and Community at UMD survey near South Campus Dining Hall (Theo Rose / The Black Explosion)
In pursuit of emphasizing togetherness, the University of Maryland launched a belonging and community survey. According to President Darryll J. Pines, The survey’s release marks the first of many steps toward implementing policies and actions promoting campus diversity and unity.
In an email to the community on March 25, 2024, Pines wrote that the results of the survey will be used to capture the experiences and perceptions of UMD community members and inform future actions in “the name of belonging and community.”
The goal is to measure university community members’ current attitudes and behaviors in addition to the influence of institutional policies and procedures on individual needs, abilities and potential, according to the survey.
Amy Miller, a freshman architecture major, believes that improving the social climate cannot solely be done through the university. She said the changes needed should show humanitarian values influenced by upbringing, relationships and personality.
“Policy would have the goal of ‘be nicer on your own time,’ which, if anything, would probably cause people to feel spiteful or argumentative, therefore having the opposite effect,” Miller said.
Stephanie Chang, associate vice president for diversity and inclusion and the co-chair of the climate survey working group, said that the survey measures the multifaceted experiences of community members, whether it be student in-class experience, staff member onboarding or faculty promotion.
She said a climate survey is conducted every three to five years. The current survey has been under development since the summer of 2023, bringing together undergraduate and graduate students, staff and faculty across campus in its creation.
Chang also stressed the confidentiality of the survey. Collected data will go through Rankin Climate, a climate surveying organization. Moreover, identifying answers to open-ended questions are deleted, and identities with under five respondents are not displayed in the aggregate results.
As for advice on taking the survey, Chang said that anyone who has questions should focus on their experiences.
“Folks should take it in the way that most reflects what they deem to be important in their UMD experience,” Chang said.
Ana Sans, a freshman elementary education major who has taken the survey, said that the questions allowed her to properly encapsulate her experience. Sans hopes the survey shows the university that there is a need to improve mental health services.
“A lot of the mental health stuff that I’ve experienced at UMD is very short-lived,” she said. “I would like to see something more large-scale and long-term.”
Participation in the survey comes with incentives: one random student will be given the opportunity to create a Maryland Dairy Ice Cream flavor, two participants will receive athletic apparel and the academic unit with the highest response rate will receive $5,000 to be put toward an event that creates a sense of belonging and community.
As of April 24, the College of Education has the highest response rate, with about 13%, while the College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences has the highest total responses, at 590.
Data based on 2023 report from Office of Institutional Research Planning and Assessment and percentages from data from the Office of The President on response rate by college.
The survey will be open until April 26. Over the summer, the data will be analyzed and results will be reported to the UMD community in Fall 2024.