Diversity survey to sample student input

Students looking forward to receiving free cookies and raffle goodies this week may have to wait until next semester to claim their prizes. A survey on diversity scheduled to be distributed in late April, whose respondents would receive a snackbar cookie and a raffle slot as a reward for their participation, may be postponed until fall.

The Campus Diversity Survey was produced by the College's Standing Committee on Pluralism and Equality (SCOPE), which is comprised of faculty and student members. More than 200 survey questions address facets of diversity including gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, language, disability and religion.

Although Committee members' original intent was to distribute the survey to a random sample of 800 students by the end of April, some members were concerned that the timing was wrong.

"It's such an important survey, and final exams are coming up for students. We don't know if they'll have time to fill the survey out," Assistant Professor of Religion David Kamitsuka said. "To make sure we get the kind of return we need, we're thinking of delaying it until the beginning of next year and distributing it to sophomores through seniors."

Kamitsuka said the decision of when to distribute the survey will be finalized by next week.

If the survey is mailed out to students this month, it will be sent to first-years through juniors. Seniors have a separate, unrelated survey to fill out for the College.

The survey targets approximately 400 white students and 400 students of color.

"The number of students of color has been weighted, so there will be a higher proportion asked to fill the survey out," Committee co-chair Bill Norris, chair of sociology, said. "If too few people respond we just can't tell what's going on. We're oversampling students of color and undersampling white students, but we should be able to manipulate the data so it all evens out in the end."

The survey is the culmination of almost a year's worth of work by the Committee, which was asked to "create a campus climate that embraces diversity" as part of the College's ongoing Strategic Planning Initiative.

"It was a pretty steep directive. It became a question of, how do we create a campus climate when nobody can pinpoint the big picture?" Associate Professor of Jazz Studies Peter Dominguez, the Committee's other co-chair, said.

First-year student senator Kara Stevens, a member of the Committee, said she hopes students will help SCOPE determine which issues of diversity need to be targeted on campus.

"I'd hope that primarily the survey will make people aware that we do care about their opinions and differences; we care enough to ask questions to see how we can accommodate them," Stevens said. "The people on SCOPE try to be very in tune and sensitive to people's feelings."

Dominguez said there has never been a climate study conducted in the Conservatory, and only small surveys targeting specific groups in the College.

The Committee will use the survey results to create what Kamitsuka referred to as "recommendations for a concrete plan of action."

The General Faculty Planning Committee (GFPC), who charged SCOPE with creating the survey, wants Committee members to write a report of suggestions for the future of diversity on campus.

"The survey results will help us pinpoint issues that need to be addressed specifically for Oberlin and recommend workshops and focus groups centering around those issues," Dominguez said.

"The idea is to find a campus climate that contributes positively to students' educational experience here at Oberlin," Norris said.

The workshops and focus groups spawning from survey results will be funded by the College's recently acquired Hewlett Grant, a fund of $105,781 in support of multicultural affairs on campus.

Dominguez said SCOPE members will compile a partial report of objectives to deliver to the GFPC in the near future.

"At this point, it all comes down to getting feedback from students," he said.