Michigan State University students, staff and faculty are invited to participate in the second Know More Campus Survey, launched Wednesday, March 16. 

The Know More survey is completely confidential and will measure the culture, perceptions and policies associated with relationship violence and sexual misconduct among undergraduate students, graduate/professional students, faculty and staff on campus.

Campus community members were emailed a unique access link to their MSU email addresses from KNOWMORE.MSU@RTI.org. This link will take participants directly to the survey, which is estimated to take 15 minutes to complete.

The Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct Expert Advisory Workgroup , which is leading the survey initiative, recommended a new survey after identifying a need for more and richer data to inform prevention programming, policy development, resource provision and culture change on campus. From there the workgroup developed and administered the Know More campuswide survey in 2019 focused not only on the experiences of students but of faculty and staff in one place—a first of its kind approach.

Carrie Moylan, associate professor in the College of Social Science and a member of the RVSM Expert Advisory Workgroup, has led developing, coordinating and administering the survey. She recently sat down with Russ White on the MSUToday podcast to share the importance of participating in the survey.

“The more responses that we get and the more people we hear from, the better sense we have that we're getting a clear and complete picture of the climate and the culture here at MSU,” Moylan said on the podcast. “We learned a lot in that 2019 survey that we fed into the formation of the strategic plan, and we thought carefully about how this data and this information could teach us where we needed to put additional energy.” 

The data—collected and analyzed by RTI International, an independent, nonprofit research organization that contracted with MSU—was used to inform important RVSM-related policies, support services, mandatory trainings, and programs. 

It was also critical to the development of the RVSM Strategic Plan and such efforts such as the Support More initiative, which was created to build a trauma informed culture and to help the MSU community respond to survivors of relationship violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and/or stalking in an informed and caring way.

“In the 2019 survey we saw that most people who experienced sexual assault or harassment confided in a friend or colleague, and far fewer reached out to MSU’s network of support services,” said Moylan. “We recognized the need to educate our whole community about how to support survivors, which is the one of the goals of the Support More initiative.

“The data from this survey really helps us understand the needs in our community and provides us with guidance about how we can all play a part in improving the climate at MSU.”

A final survey report is anticipated in fall 2022 and will be shared with the MSU community via the Know More campus survey website.