The HEDS Sexual Assault Campus Climate Survey is a questionnaire for undergraduate students developed and administered by the Higher Education Data-Sharing Consortium, an organization of private colleges and universities that share knowledge and expertise to advance undergraduate liberal arts education, inclusive excellence, and student success. The questionnaire asks students about their perceptions of their campus’s climate for unwanted sexual contact and sexual assault; their perceptions of how their institution responds to sexual assaults; and whether and how often they have experienced unwanted sexual contact or sexual assault.
2020 Survey Results
The survey was administered to students at St. Olaf in February 2020, and students at 67 other small colleges during either the 2019-20 academic year or the academic year preceding it. 689 St. Olaf students responded (19% of men, 24% of women), with an overall response rate of 23%. While this is similar to the mean response rate of 22% for the other participating institutions, results should be treated with caution, because neither response rate was high enough to know whether the findings are representative of the overall student population either at St. Olaf or at the comparison schools. Nevertheless, the results provide insight into the perceptions and experiences of many St. Olaf students and their counterparts at other small colleges. The survey was also administered in spring 2017 with a response rate of 29%, and comparative insights will be included below.
2017 Survey Results
The survey was administered to students at St. Olaf in late spring 2017, and to students at 75 other small colleges during either that same academic year or the year preceding it. Nearly 860 St. Olaf students responded (37% of them men, 63% of them women), for an overall response rate of 29%. While this exceeded the mean response rate of 23% for the other participating institutions, results should be treated with caution, because neither response rate was high enough to know whether the findings are representative of the overall student population either at St. Olaf or at the comparison schools.