{"id":324,"date":"2015-01-30T09:39:34","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T14:39:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ssc.wisc.edu\/~whansen\/?p=324"},"modified":"2015-02-02T10:31:47","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T15:31:47","slug":"letter-to-the-editor-uw-should-use-all-available-means-to-create-a-better-campus-climate-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/users.ssc.wisc.edu\/~wlhansen\/?p=324","title":{"rendered":"Letter to the Editor: UW should use all available means to create a better campus climate"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>January 30, 2015
\nThe Badger Herald<\/a><\/p>\n

Lack of evidence about the state of Madison\u2019s \u201ccampus climate\u201d proved to be the real surprise at Tuesday afternoon\u2019s Diversity and Inclusion discussion. Remarks by Chancellor Rebecca Blank, Dean of Students Lori Berquam and Interim Chief Diversity Officer Patrick Sims made it sound as if the campus climate is worsening<\/a>. But is that really the case?<\/p>\n

No answer was provided. Instead attendees were told to ask the question: What can I do right now to improve the campus climate? Nobody offered a definition of the term \u201ccampus climate.\u201d Nor did anyone offer concrete guidance on how students, staff and faculty could respond to this call for action. Telling everyone they should help make the campus \u201cthe best it can be\u201d is not very helpful.<\/p>\n

Developing suggestions about what people might do could have been informed by the results of a UW campus climate survey conducted by a consulting firm in 2011. The results of that survey are contained in a more than 300-page<\/a> report completed in July 2012. Strangely, that report and its appendices can be accessed only by people who have a UW Net ID and password.<\/p>\n

This wide-ranging report surveyed students, faculty and staff in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences<\/a>, it being viewed as a microcosm of UW. Although only 8 percent of students and 29 percent of employees (faculty, academic staff, classified staff, etc.) responded, the survey results are described by the UW Office of Academic Planning and Institutional Research as being \u201crelevant for UW as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three-fourths of all respondents viewed the overall campus climate as \u201ccomfortable\u201d or \u201cvery comfortable.\u201d Eighty-three percent of the students gave similar responses.<\/p>\n

Approximately 20-25 percent of respondents said they \u201cpersonally experienced offensive, hostile, exclusionary or intimidating conduct in the past two years.\u201d For the disabled, the figure was higher, 38 percent, while for students the figure was 15 percent. For people of color and whites, their percentage figures were approximately the same at 22 and 21 percent.<\/p>\n

When respondents were asked if the inappropriate conduct was due to their gender, race\/ethnicity, sexual orientation or disability status, the numbers answering affirmatively were 45 percent for women, 44 percent for \u201cgay, lesbian, bisexual, queer,\u201d 29 percent for people of color and 24 percent for the disabled.<\/p>\n

Much more can be learned from this report, particularly about what kinds of conduct proved to be most inappropriate. This information could have provided useful guidance to attendees on how best to improve Madison\u2019s campus climate.<\/p>\n

Why this expensive report has not received greater attention is perplexing. Why the Dean of Students and the Chief Diversity Officer failed to draw on this report needs to be explained.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear whether any of the report\u2019s recommendations have been implemented. If they have been implemented, has the campus climate improved as a result? If so, by how much? If not, why not? Why initiate studies of this kind if their findings are to be ignored?<\/p>\n

W. Lee Hansen (wlhansen@wisc.edu) is a professor emeritus in the economics department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 30, 2015 The Badger Herald Lack of evidence about the state of Madison\u2019s \u201ccampus climate\u201d proved to be the real surprise at Tuesday afternoon\u2019s Diversity and Inclusion discussion. Remarks by Chancellor Rebecca Blank, Dean of Students Lori Berquam and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,9],"tags":[246,253,248,252,251,89,249,250,105,247,88],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/users.ssc.wisc.edu\/~wlhansen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/users.ssc.wisc.edu\/~wlhansen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/users.ssc.wisc.edu\/~wlhansen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/users.ssc.wisc.edu\/~wlhansen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/users.ssc.wisc.edu\/~wlhansen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/users.ssc.wisc.edu\/~wlhansen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":341,"href":"https:\/\/users.ssc.wisc.edu\/~wlhansen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions\/341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/users.ssc.wisc.edu\/~wlhansen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/users.ssc.wisc.edu\/~wlhansen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/users.ssc.wisc.edu\/~wlhansen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}