April 24, 2019
Carrie Moylan is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work and is a member of MSU's Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct Expert Advisory Workgroup.
In March, every undergraduate student, graduate student, faculty and staff member at MSU received an email inviting them to participate in the KNOW MORE@ MSU Survey. If I could say one thing to everyone on MSU’s campus, it would be this: If you care about MSU and are committed to making MSU a stronger and more vibrant campus, please take the KNOW MORE @ MSU Survey.
The Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct Expert Advisory Workgroup was appointed in February of 2018 to make recommendations about policies, programs and culture-change that were needed at MSU. One of the first things our group did was collect feedback from the university community through an online portal and in meetings with a variety of student, staff and faculty stakeholder groups.
It quickly became clear that MSU needed better information about campus members’ experiences and perspectives related to RVSM issues so that decisions about policy, prevention and resources could be based on reliable, accurate information. We recommended to the president that MSU work on developing a survey that could produce meaningful information relevant to our campus community.
When developing the KNOW MORE @ MSU Survey, we felt strongly that we wanted to include all members of our campus community, including students, staff and faculty. The survey needed to ask about experiences related to RVSM, but also needed to be much broader in order to capture the wider culture that shapes individual experiences. Finally, the campus community needed to have trust in the safety and anonymity of their responses and trust that the university would be transparent and share the results with the campus.
We selected a non-profit research firm, RTI International, with extensive experience designing valid and reliable surveys for campuses. RTI is administering the survey in order to protect the confidentiality of survey responses. RTI will also prepare a report with the results of the survey that will be shared with the campus in Fall 2019.
Administrators, including Acting President Udpa, are committed to sharing the results openly and using the data to shape future programming and policy decisions. Programs within the university like the Office for Civil Rights and Title IX and the Prevention, Outreach and Education Department are eager to use the results to shape their ongoing efforts in prevention and response to RVSM.
We have a well-designed survey, a fabulous partner administering the survey and a commitment from leadership to use the survey results to shape university policy, programs and resources. For the survey to be successful, however, we need everyone at MSU to take the survey.
Thousands of MSU students, staff and faculty have taken the survey so far, but we need to hear from all voices on our campus in order to have confidence that the results are capturing the full range of perspectives within our diverse community. The survey is relevant to everyone on campus and we need everyone to participate. The survey will be closing soon, so I hope that you will use this chance to share your voice and shape our future!