Message from CEC on Lehigh Survey Recommendations
Dear Students, Staff, and Faculty,
We are writing to update you on our ongoing work surrounding the Lehigh Survey, which many of you took the time to participate in last semester. We are sharing a series of recommendations, which were sent to the Office for Civil Rights last Friday. These recommendations, which can be viewed at http://www1.lehigh.edu/diversity/updates, were the result of a great deal of work on the part of the CEC throughout the month of January. The discussions generated many more ideas and recommendations beyond those sent to OCR, and the CEC will consider all of these as we continue our efforts to build community at Lehigh.
In an email from the president and provost to the campus last week, a link was provided to sections of the report. These include a survey overview; data tables specific to students, faculty, and staff; and a document containing notes on the data tables from the survey developers designed to help in understanding them. (Additional considerations from the survey developers for further analysis can also be viewed at http://www1.lehigh.edu/diversity/updates).
As the CEC learned from the faculty developers, generalizing specific conclusions from this data is premature, and a more sophisticated review of the data needs to be conducted.
To that end, the faculty who created the survey have recommended the purchase of a software package designed to analyze the data. The CEC has endorsed this recommendation and is taking steps to make the purchase.
Many survey respondents took the time to make thoughtful comments. These comments are powerful and provided important insights that will inform our shared work in creating a more understanding and respectful campus community. These survey comments are not being shared at this time because, in their current form, they may not preserve the anonymity of the sources that was promised at the outset of the survey process. We plan to analyze the comments, code the comments to assure anonymity, and share our analysis when completed. Our faculty tell us the process of coding and analyzing comments could be completed by the end of the semester. We request your patience as they conduct this important work. The CEC welcomes your questions, thoughts, and participation as we work together to pursue and adopt the recommendations we have provided. We encourage you to visit the CEC blog at http://cec.web.lehigh.edu/ to continue the conversation. We are also developing workshops to discuss these issues. Please watch for further announcements.