Four out of five students and employees are satisfied with their Rutgers experience and the overall climate of the campus where they work, learn, and live, according to the newly released Campus Climate Survey report.

The survey, commissioned by the Committee to Advance Our Common Purposes, was sent via email to students and employees on all three campuses last year. It addressed five major areas: general campus climate, diversity, discrimination and harassment, improving the campus, and race and ethnicity.

Among the significant findings:

• 86 percent of employees expressed pride in being part of Rutgers, as did 80 percent of the student respondents
• 74 percent of students and employees agreed that the university climate is “accepting of who I am”
• close to 80 percent of students and employees believe that the university is committed to diversity

More than 8,500 students and 3,000 employees responded to the survey, conducted in March and April of 2005 for students and in November and December 2005 for employees. The overall response rate was 21 percent for students and 35 percent for employees.

“Those 11,000 responses resulted in about 150 pages of single-spaced comments, which represent major input from a substantial number of people,” said Richard White, co-chair of the Campus Climate Committee. “The data provides a snapshot of the levels of tolerance, understanding, prejudice, and discrimination at Rutgers, helping us assess what we do well, where we are deficient, and what our long-term goals should be.”

The committee, under the auspices of the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs, had been charged by President Richard L. McCormick in the fall of 2003 to conduct a universitywide campus climate survey, with the goal of improving the quality of life at Rutgers.

Climate surveys had been conducted in 1989 and 1995, but included only students, said White, who is also director of Career Services in New Brunswick. Comprising 40 students, faculty, administrators, and staff representing all campuses, the committee developed and administered the survey with assistance from both Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics and the Office of Institutional Research and Planning.

Mary Beth Daisey, coordinator of the survey on the Camden campus, said she was pleasantly surprised by the positive responses from all campuses on climate-related issues. In Camden, for example, 81 percent of the students and 86 percent of employees rated the campus climate as “good” or “excellent.”

Other results were not as rosy. Universitywide, 68 percent of faculty believed they can have an impact on decision making in their departments, while 38 percent of part-time lecturers and 22 percent of students felt they could affect decision making at Rutgers. Students on each campus – 21, 19 and 24 percent in Newark, Camden, and New Brunswick respectively – indicate they had been discriminated against or harassed at least once at Rutgers, the chief reason being race or ethnicity.

The report states that the survey is “only the beginning of serious conversations about bias, tolerance and understanding that need to take place on the New Brunswick/Piscataway, Newark and Camden campuses.” It recommends that each campus appoint an existing group to examine the survey results and determine what steps to take to improve the campus climate.

In New Brunswick, the report has been turned over to the Bias Prevention Education Committee under the leadership of Cheryl Clarke, director of the Office of Social Justice Education and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Communities. Gerald Massenburg, assistant provost for student affairs on the Newark Campus, will be taking the lead in Newark through the Student Affairs Roundtable. And the Camden Campus is planning to establish an implementation committee, under the direction of Daisey, to develop and implement recommendations.