Purdue to take part in national survey on campus sexual assault climate

April 9, 2015  


WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue will be among a group of universities nationally to take part in a campus climate survey on sexual assault being sponsored by the Association of American Universities.

Purdue students will receive information via email from Alysa Christmas Rollock, Purdue’s vice president for ethics and compliance and Title IX coordinator, that will include a link to complete the confidential survey online. Purdue’s survey period will run from April 13 to May 4.

All results will be received and analyzed by the research company Westat, and the AAU will publicly report aggregate results from participating AAU campuses. Westat also will provide Purdue with de-identified results from its students’ responses.

“I encourage all of our students to participate in the survey. Greater participation will give us a better understanding of the experiences and views of our students,” Rollock said. “The survey results will be used for research and to guide policies to encourage a healthy, safe and nondiscriminatory environment at Purdue. Joining AAU and other universities means we don’t have to create our own survey, and also will allow us to better understand the national climate in addition to that on our campus.”

According to the AAU, identifying information such as email addresses will be severed as students go online to begin the survey. At that point, they will be assigned an encoded survey ID that will permit them to stop at any time and complete the survey later. The survey protocols were reviewed and approved internally by Purdue’s Human Research Protection Program.

The survey will be administered at 27 AAU member institutions and one non-member university. AAU estimates the survey includes a population of more than 800,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students, potentially making it among the largest surveys ever on sexual assault. Many institutions not taking part in the AAU initiative are carrying out some type of similar survey effort.

The AAU survey was developed by a team of experts based on a survey instrument developed by the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault and a survey instrument developed by Rutgers University. In addition to the standardized questions, the survey will have five questions that are campus-specific to “assess students’ familiarity with campus resources, support services and reporting mechanisms,” according to the AAU. 

Source: Alysa Christmas Rollock, 765-494-5830, acrollock@purdue.edu 

Related information:

AAU news release:

https://www.aau.edu/news/article.aspx?id=15806 

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