Just one week after President of Fordham University Rev. Joseph McShane, S.J. admonished sexual assault, the University released an anonymous survey to students via email to learn more about the climate of sexual assault on campus. Students received the link at 5 p.m. on Monday, April 6.

The University’s working group focused on Title IX issues on campus began working on the survey in the summer of 2014. Title IX is legislation passed in 1972 that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in schools that receive federal funding. The working group includes Dean of Students at Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC), Keith Eldredge, Dean of Students at Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH), Chris Rodgers, Director of the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance Anasastia Coleman J.D., Associate Vice President of Public Safety John Carroll, Deputy Emergency Manager Patricia Upton, and Associate Vice President of Student Affairs Michele Burris.

“One of the main goals is to gage how prevalent [campus assault] is here,” Eldredge said. “We only know the incidents that our reported to us.”

“We’ve been talking about the idea for years,” Eldredge said. After the White House released their Not Alone report which suggests Universities begin a climate survey which looked to pass mandatory surveys in 2016, “that was the final impetus to say, ‘Let’s do this now,’” Eldredge said.

“Everyone will have a unique link emailed to them,” Eldredge explained. “It is an anonymous survey and your name and your email address is in no way attached to your responses, but [Campus Labs] is able to track who has completed it and who hasn’t for the reminder emails.” Campus Labs is a company Fordham has contracted with for at least four years to complete surveys.

“The more students that take this survey the more valuable it will be for us the more information we will learn which will influence possible policy changes, educational programs, training.”

The working group started from a survey provided by the Not Alone report and narrowed down and adjusted questions from there. Eldredge said, “Our goal was that the most comprehensive survey could be done in 20-25 minutes, certainly under 30 minutes.” Depending on how students answer certain questions there can be additional follow-up questions, according to Eldredge.

“The daunting task of a campus wide survey: what are we going to ask, we need to make sure they are verified questions and good surveys,” Eldredge said.

“A number of the questions ask about education training,” Eldredge said. “If students answer what have you learned about dealing with sexual assault with nothing, than we really have to evaluate what we are doing.”
Students from both campuses were involved in the last phases of creating the survey.

The demo survey took Louise Lingat, President of United Student Government (USG) at Lincoln Center and FCLC ’15, about 15 to 20 minutes. “I didn’t see anything too offensive, I was told to take the demo to see if anything was oddly worded,” Lingat said.

“A lot of questions are asked and although they may not be comfortable, but they need to be asked and talked about on campus,” Lingat continued. “I hope that people take it.”

Leighton Magoon, USG Treasurer and Student Activities Budget Committee (SABC) Chairperson and FCLC ’17,  also took the demo survey but it took him about six to eight minutes.  Magoon was concerned at first that some content could be triggering for survivors of sexual assault. But he said, “after reading through the prompts, I feel the administration did a good job at explaining some content may be triggering.”

“I always want to make sure everything the University sends out will be received well by the students, and  personally I don’t have any complaints,” Magoon said.

Both USG members and Eldredge urge students to take the survey.

Tweet us what you thought of the survey @FordhamObserver.