PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — On Thursday, April 4, students at Brown University began sharing information and perspectives on campus sexual assault and misconduct, as Brown and 32 other colleges and universities conduct a national survey to inform continued efforts to prevent and respond to incidents.
The 2019 Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct, organized by the Association of American Universities (AAU), will ask an estimated 870,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students across the nation to share their experiences with, and perceptions of, sexual misconduct on college and university campuses. Brown is one of 33 major research institutions participating.
The national survey comes four years after AAU conducted its first campus climate survey, in which Brown was an early participant. The 2015 survey was the first to illustrate the prevalence and characteristics of sexual assault incidents on a variety of campuses, and it sparked conversation that brought about changes to policy and procedure at nearly all participating universities.
“The 2015 survey educated us on the prevalence of sexual and gender-based violence both nationwide and at Brown, particularly in marginalized communities,” said Rene Davis, the University’s Title IX officer. “The survey data not only reinforced the importance of the work we were already doing, but also allowed us face head-on where we needed to strengthen our outreach or adjust our approach.”
Davis said that Brown has taken a strategic and sustained approach to confronting sexual harassment and gender-based violence on campus in the years since the 2015 survey data was released and its Sexual Assault Task Force issued a set of recommendations on prevention and response.
In 2015, the University formed its Title IX and Gender Equity Office, creating a central resource for reporting, training and prevention. Shortly afterward, the University launched a required online course on sexual assault for first-year students, faculty and staff. BWell Health Promotion has created multiple programs designed to curb sexual assault and misconduct, including a Sexual Assault Peer Education program for Greek and program houses and a voluntary program that challenges existing assumptions about masculinity, in which several athletic teams and other students have participated.
“Brown’s programming focuses on the root causes of sexual assault and misconduct, such as power imbalances,” Davis said. “We want to teach students, faculty and staff to be mindful of consent in everyday settings, to recognize the power dynamics at play and to focus on how their behavior could affect others.”
Davis said the 2019 survey will be instrumental in providing a deeper understanding of the climate at Brown and beyond, and it will assist in continued efforts to find new ways to reduce harm and support students. Given a continued focus at Brown to encourage reporting incidents and seeking support, she said she is prepared for the possibility of an increase in reported incidents of sexual assault and misconduct.
“We work hard to encourage community members to report incidents, because it gives us an accurate indication of what our community is experiencing,” Davis said. “The experience a person reports could have happened in our learning spaces, or it could have happened before or between that person’s time at Brown. The survey is not just about what happens here at Brown; it’s also about whether community members find support in our resources.”
The Campus Climate Survey asks students questions about several types of misconduct, including harassment, stalking, intimate partner violence and various forms of nonconsensual sexual contact. Students are asked to share as many details as possible about incidents in which they have been involved, including the channels they used to report the incidents and the amount of support they feel they received from their universities.
AAU and the 33 participating universities have partnered with Westat, a leading social science research firm, to conduct the survey and analyze the results. Like the 2015 survey, it will be anonymous with no personally identifiable information collected from any participant. At Brown, it is open to all degree-seeking students, including those in undergraduate, graduate, medical and professional programs.
The survey opens to Brown students on April 4 and closes on May 5. According to the AAU, results from the survey will be available in the fall of 2019. Davis said Brown plans to release the full set of results specific to the University along with a summary of key findings, as it did in 2015.