The purpose of the Survey Committee is to improve the quality of campus surveys by

• (a) coordinating the scheduling of all surveys delivered to UCCS students, alumni, faculty, staff, and/or key stakeholders
• (b) reviewing all surveys for compliance with existing policies and best practices
• (c) providing support for survey research and design
• (d) expanding accessibility to and use of survey results. 

Through a collaborative effort, we aim to reduce survey fatigue, improve response rates, avoid redundancies, provide resources and operational support, and enhance the overall use and applicability of survey results to advance the mission and strategic plan of the university.

Submit a Survey Proposal:

The Survey Committee will review proposals and provide feedback to colleagues who wish to administer a survey. The committee meets every month to review survey proposals, determine recommendations, and compile feedback to assist you. If you would like to administer a survey, follow these steps:

1. Read the Survey Committee Charge 
2. Complete the CU:FERPA Training Course 
3. Complete the CITI IRB Training Course
4. Submit your proposal by completing the Survey Proposal Form 
5. A committee member will respond to you within 2-4 weeks.

Survey Committee Members:

• Amanda Alee, Dean of Students
• Daniel Pape, Career Services
• Deborah O'Connor, Compliance
• Laura Emmott, Institutional Equity and Title IX 
• Eric Nissen, University Advancement/Marketing
• Grant Clayton, College of Education, Department of Teaching & Learning
• Jessi Smith, Research
• Joanna Bean, Alumni Relations
• Stephen Cucchiara, Student Life
• Stephanie Hanenberg, Health & Wellness Center
• Jenny Russell, Institutional Research

• Qualtrics users must protect the privacy and confidentiality of student records and personally identifiable information as required by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
  • Visit the Office of the Registrar's FERPA website for more information on FERPA.
• Qualtrics is not approved for the collection or storage of personally identifiable information such as student education records, protected health information, or other sensitive institutional data. We do not have a Business Associate Agreement with Qualtrics and will not use Qualtrics to maintain protected health information regulated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). 
• The UCCS logo may be used only when surveys are administered as official University business.
  • UCCS brand identity standards and guidelines on logo use are available from University Communications and Media Relations.

What is the Campus and Workplace Culture (CWC) Survey?

The University of Colorado system and each campus (Anschutz, Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Denver) launched the Campus and Workplace Culture (CWC) Survey in the fall semester of 2021. The survey provided an opportunity for faculty, staff and students to share anonymized information about the extent to which they feel respected, supported, and valued at UCCS. There were surveys for each of four populations: undergraduate students, graduate students, staff, and faculty.

The results are displayed through the link below using Tableau. Results are best viewed with a desktop browser. Please contact irdata@uccs.edu if you need help with the dashboard or if you have general questions about the survey.

Tableau Navigation

• Select tabs across the top of the results page to view theme questions and data
• Use menus to select UCCS Role (Undergrad, Graduate Student, Staff, Faculty), Group (Gender, Race/Ethnicity, Political Affiliation), and Academic Unit
• Hover over bar charts and data points for more information

Survey Results

FAQs

• Interpretation of Results. IR assumes a community-based approach to interpretation of the results in which students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to share their expertise and may choose to contribute in ways to validate their experiences. We hope this approach will enhance more equitable and shared decision-making.  
• Anonymity. Survey participants' privacy will be maintained. We are anonymizing the survey after the surveys close and incentives have been distributed. Enabling this setting will remove metadata like an email address and disconnect the response from the contact who provided it. In this way, we can know which contacts responded through the distribution history (se we can send reminders) but we cannot know which response belongs to which contact. The UCCS Director of IR will manage the email distribution lists and deliver unique survey URLs to individuals in order to message respondents and non-respondents appropriately.
• Incentives. We intend to distribute $5 choice gift cards to the first 450 survey completers and more depending on the availability of funds. Survey completers will receive an email to choice a gift card of their choice via the Tango Rewards program.
• Security. The surveys will be administered through the IR instances of Qualtrics and the data are encrypted in transit and at rest. For more information about Qualtrics' security, read their security statement. 
• Duration. The surveys will take about 10-20 minutes to complete. Respondents may leave the survey and come back later to pick up where they left off by clicking the same link in their email invitation. 
• Accessibility. The surveys are compatible with assistive technology such as screen readers. The surveys will be accessible on smartphones but we recommend completing the survey on a computer. UCCS intends to provide a room on campus to allow students, faculty, or staff to complete the survey on a computer if they would like to do so. 
• Population. Enrolled students and active employees will be invited to take the survey if they are 18 years or older at the beginning date of the survey. Individuals younger than 18 are protected minors and will not be invited to take the survey.
• Open-ended questions. There are no open-ended questions in the survey. This is intentional in order to uphold the confidentiality and anonymity of the survey respondents. It also prevents comments from triggering investigations. (The surveys do not constitute reports about illegal behavior or misconduct. Various resources to report misconduct or to seek support are provided throughout the surveys and in the footer of the surveys.)
• Results. The IR Offices at each campus will close the surveys and work with Offices for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion among other campus stakeholders who will develop communications, responses, and action plans to use the survey results to inform decisions and improve campus and workplace cultures. Reports and results will be available here on this website; any frequencies or crosstabulations that show small groups of 10 or fewer respondents will be suppressed to protect the identity of respondents who belong to that group. IR will not entertain ad-hoc requests to mine the data. 
• Survey Instruments. There are four survey instruments customized for different populations within our campus community (undergraduate students, graduate students, staff, and faculty). The instruments are available upon request; please email mokeefe2@uccs.edu. 

Background

In 2019 CU launched the Diversity Engagement Survey (DES). DES was an initiative of the Board of Regents and administered by a third party. The survey had a low participation rate of 14% overall and 15.4% for Boulder, 8.8% for UCCS, 9% for Denver, 18.8% for Anschutz, and 48.3% for the system. In addition, the survey was not originally developed to have demographic questions on political affiliation or political philosophy. After consulting with system and campus leaders, CU has decided to transition to the Campus Workplace Climate Survey (CWC) which has already proved to have a participation rate between 53%-73% for faculty, staff and students on one of our campuses and allows us to have a more representative look at how different protected classes feel respected, supported, and valued at CU.

Campus Contacts & Websites

• Boulder CWC will be led by Sonia DeLuca Fernández (Senior Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion), Dr. Dyonne Bergeron (Assistant Vice Chancellor for Inclusion and Student Achievement), Valerie Simons (Associate Vice Chancellor & TItle IX Coordinator), Teresa Wroe (Senior Director of Education and Prevention & Deputy Title IX Coordinator), Julie Volckens (OIEC Director of Assessment), Robert Stubbs (Director for Institutional Research), Dr. Frances Costa (IR Senior Researcher), and Dr. Amy Biesterfeld-Nakatani (IR Assistant Director for Assessment)
• Colorado Springs CWC led by Rame Hanna (Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) and Maureen O’Keefe (Interim Director of Institutional Research)
• Denver/Anschutz CWC led by Antonio Faras, Regina Richards, Jameel Mallory, Dave Deffenbacher, and Ian Whitman
• System CWC will be led by Emily Osan (DEI Specialist), and Ryan Allred (Institutional Research Coordinator)

About
NSSE is a survey administered to first-year and senior students at hundreds of participating institutions coordinated by the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. The survey collects information about how students engage in academic and co-curricular activities providing institutions with valuable information to gauge high impact practices that improve student success.

To learn more about the variety of resources such as survey instruments, additional modules, weighting results, psychometric portfolios and more, please visit the NSSE website here.

Schedule
IR manages the NSSE survey for UCCS and we are currently participating at least every three years and more often when funding is available. The survey is usually conducted during the months of March and April.

Results
Please explore the yearly reports below and inquire with the UCCS Office of Institutional Research for additional information.

• 2023
• 2021
• 2018
• 2015
• 2013
• 2011
• 2009
• 2008
• 2006
• 2004
• 2003
• 2002

About the UCLA HERI & UCCS Surveys

In the 2021-2022 fiscal year, UCCS IR acquired funds from a diversity grant from our colleagues in the system and DEI offices. We proposed to administer two surveys managed by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). By joining forces with our partners, we are able to collect information about the workplace environment for staff and the learning environment for students and benchmark our results with other participating institutions. Learn more at https://heri.ucla.edu/. We intend to use the survey results to supplement and bolster efforts to investigate our campus culture, such as with the Campus Workplace and Culture Surveys and the National Survey of Student Engagement among other efforts.

Results (Forthcoming)

Diverse Learning Environments Survey

• Institutional Profile Report: includes summary data broken out by demographics and statistics around themes such as mobility, push/pull influences, interaction with faculty, collaborative learning, and more. 

• Factor Report: includes results on complex concepts such as sense of belonging, interpersonal validation, civic engagement, social agency, and so much more.
• Executive Summary with data from one comparison group and provided in easy-to-read PowerPoint format.

Staff Climate Survey

• Institutional Profile Report: summary data by demographics and comparison groups, including results from all institutions participating in the survey.
• Executive Summary in an easy-to-read PowerPoint format.

Timelines & Response Rates

We opted to administer the Staff Climate Survey and the Diverse Learning Environments Survey in the spring semester of 2022. Preliminary results will be shared here after the surveys close (at the end of the spring semester) while we await official reports from UCLA/HERI in late summer. We also have access to immediate and preliminary results while the survey is underway (please email irdata@uccs.edu for assistance).