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		Diversity: Assessing Residential Climate and Programs By Joshua McIntosh, Coordinator for Assessment and Residence Director, Syracuse University & Sarah Young, Residence Director, Syracuse University INTRODUCTION There is a tremendous amount of literature demonstrating the significant challenges that underrepresented students, specifically gay, lesbian, and bisexual students and students of color, experience in higher education. The majority of gay, lesbian, and bisexual students lack the level of security and comfort afforded most heterosexual students on college campuses (Wall and Evans, 2000). In addition, many studies demonstrate that high levels of homophobia exist on college campuses (Melaney, Williams, and Geller, 1997; D'Augelli and Rose, 1990). Gay, lesbian, and bisexual students experience this homophobia through incidents of harassment, victimization, and intimidation on college campuses throughout the United States (D'Augelli, 1992; Kerek, 1993; Whipple, 1991). On the Syracuse University campus, students of color also fall victim to similar incidents of hate related to their identity. There are many studies demonstrating the specific challenges faced by students of color (Greene, 1987; Olivas, 1982; Parker and Scott, 1985; Nettles, 1990). Harris (1996) reported that students of color in college and university environments encounter both institutional and overt racism. Students of color on predominantly white campuses are more likely than others to feel alienated if for no other reason than they are seriously outnumbered (Johnstone, 1990). The literature demonstrates the challenges facing underrepresented student populations within the college environment and the environment clearly plays a critical role in how students perceive and experience college. It is critical to note the direct role and impact of the environment on psychosocial and cognitive development. There are many studies and theories that assert this relationship. Residence life professionals are charged with creating and shaping residential environments that maximize student’s abilities to grow and develop as individuals. Given that students spend approximately 70% of their college experience in residence halls, it is imperative that people working in residence life make it a priority to understand how students perceive and experience the residence hall environment (Schroeder and Jackson, 1987). Understanding the many challenges underrepresented students encounter on the college campus, and within residence halls, and the impact of the environment on these students, it is the responsibility of student affairs professionals to assess diversity issues, specifically campus climate and programs as they relate to diversity. The Office of Residence Life at Syracuse University has made a commitment to understanding how students experience diversity in their residence halls. Specifically, there is a departmental value on using assessment as a means to understand how different student populations perceive and experience diversity in the residence halls. The reason for doing such assessment is not only to understand how students experience diversity and the climate in the residence halls, but also to use the assessment results as a means to strengthen current policies and programs. The Office of Residence Life developed and implemented a diversity assessment plan during the Spring 2001 semester and is currently in the process of developing a diversity assessment plan to be implemented during the Spring 2002 semester. The remainder of this article is intended to be similar to a case study that will demonstrate how the Office of Residence Life went about assessing diversity during the Spring 2001 semester. Furthermore, the article will provide insight as to how the results were used to create change and the lessons learned by engaging in this assessment project. THE RESIDENTIAL PROGRAM AT SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY The mission statement in the Office of Residence Life at Syracuse University is "to foster student development, support academic success, and celebrate diversity by creating intentional programs and experiences." This is accomplished by the Community Action Plan (CAP), which was developed and implemented by the Office of Residence Life. The CAP guides residential staff in performing their job responsibilities by promoting dialogue, interaction, and perspective taking around specific topics within a variety of contexts (Figure 1.1). The CAP directly addresses issues of diversity by focussing on community development, personal development, and multicultural awareness. Although all parts of the CAP are important to the residential program, for the purposes of this assessment project, the focus was to understand how students were experiencing diversity in their residence hall as it relates to the Community Action Plan. Specifically, the purpose was to determine if the Office of Residence Life was accomplishing its diversity-related objectives. Figure 1.1 - A model of the residential program at Syracuse University. METHODOLOGY Instrument To accomplish the objectives, a survey was used to assess the diversity programs and climate in the residence halls. This instrument focussed on the diversity-related aspects of the Community Action Plan (CAP). Each section asked the resident to respond to specific statements about their experience within the residence halls pertaining to diversity. The survey included the comfort level of residents within their community as well as program satisfaction related to diversity. More specifically, the instrument asked about particular parts of the CAP such as individual interactions, programming, and building-wide inclusion of underrepresented students. The instrument also included questions about observing incidents of discrimination in their residence hall and if they had observed incidents of discrimination how comfortable they were in describing the incident(s) to various levels of residence life staff. The last section of the instrument was composed of questions related to student demographics, including residence hall, class year, race, gender, and sexual orientation. Sample and Data Collection Procedures A 25% (n=1290) stratified random sample of undergraduate students living in residence halls was generated. The sample was stratified by race, gender, and residence hall to obtain a representative sample of our residential campus community. Web-based assessment techniques were used to collect data. The instrument was published on a web site and the sampled students were then sent an initial e-mail, via an established listserv, requesting that they click on a web-link that was included in the e-mail message. Clicking on this link connected students directly to the web-based survey that was maintained on the Office of Residence Life assessment web server. Within the survey, respondents were offered the opportunity to enter an e-mail address to be entered into a drawing for a $50.00 gift certificate. Upon completing the survey, respondents were prompted to submit their responses. Following this initial mailing, e-mail addresses entered for the drawing were collected and, those that were identical to the original listings in the mailing list were removed from the listserv. Two follow-up e-mails were sent to those students that had not yet completed the survey. RESULTS The response rate to the survey was 32.5% (n=419). Of the 419 respondents, 38.2% (n=160) self-identified as male and 61.8% (n=259) self-identified as female. Forty (9.5%) of the respondents self-identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual (GLB) and 90.5% (n=379) self-identified as heterosexual. In regards to race, 21.5% (n=90) identified as being a student of color and 78.5% (n=329) self-identified as Caucasian. There was a tremendous amount of data collected, providing a variety of results related to different student populations. The focus of this article is to understand the process of assessing diversity and not necessarily the results, however a few will be shared to demonstrate the type of results obtained. Chi-square analyses revealed some significant (p<.05) differences between different student populations. The following highlights some selected results: When asked about their level of comfort in their residence hall, GLB students indicated significantly lower levels of comfort than heterosexual students. GLB students also reported significantly lower levels of satisfaction with the variety of diversity programs and minority student participation in programs than heterosexual students. GLB students reported significantly higher levels of observing incidents of discrimination in their residence hall than heterosexual students. Compared to Caucasian students, students of color reported significantly lower levels of agreement in the department's effectiveness in marketing leadership opportunities to minority students and significantly lower levels of agreement in hall councils' encouragement of minority student participation in residence hall events. Compared to Caucasian students, students of color reported significantly lower levels of satisfaction with the variety of diversity programs offered in the residence halls and lower levels of satisfaction with minority student participation in residence hall programs. HOW WERE THE RESULTS USED TO CREATE CHANGE? Dialogue - In order to facilitate dialogue, the results of the survey were shared in several different ways. A few of the results were highlighted in an assessment publication, The Orange Slice, created by the Office of Residence Life. This publication was sent to specific individuals across the Syracuse University campus in order to facilitate discussions around issues related to diversity. The results were also used to facilitate intentional dialogue at specific campus meetings (i.e. Academic Coordinating Committee, a group of associate deans and unit directors), residence hall floor meetings, and residence hall programs. Therefore, the survey results were used in a variety of ways to promote discussions amongst students and staff. New Programs - The survey results facilitated the development of new programs and supported the existence of current programs. For example, the results lead to a campus-wide No Place For Hate initiative, which focused on promoting a student culture that embraces, accepts, and understands issues of difference. A bias-related incident protocol was also developed to assist residence life staff in consistently supporting students who experience incidents of hate or intolerance in the residence halls. There is currently a Multicultural Living-Learning Community (MLLC) at Syracuse University and the data supports the need for and expansion of such residential environments. Furthermore, there have recently been discussions about the possible development of a GLB Living-Learning Community and the data supports the need for such an environment. LESSONS LEARNED Instrument - The web-based instrument asked many relevant questions, but the questions were rather general and did not focus on specific student experiences. For example one of the questions on the instrument inquired about observing incidents of discrimination, but there were no questions on the survey that specifically asked students if they had personally experienced discrimination. Furthermore, the instrument asked questions only about students' experiences in their residence hall and did not ask students about their experiences across the campus. As a result, there are currently many professionals within the Division of Student Affairs developing a new instrument that will ask more specific and focused questions about students' personal experiences in different environments on campus. Response Rate - The response rate for this assessment project was 32.5%. Therefore, the Office of Residence Life is in the process of developing techniques that will hopefully increase web-based survey response rates to 50%-60%. Sharing Results - Initially this assessment project was a small endeavor that began with the simple interest of trying to determine departmental strengths and weaknesses related to diversity. After collecting and analyzing the data and distributing the reports to a select few people, it became apparent that many more university constituents wanted to know about the information. As a result, many additional reports and presentations were prepared. In the future, Office of Residence Life staff will be prepared for the amount of time that will be needed to invest in sharing the results through presentations and reports. Risks Associated with Sharing Results - It is imperative that individuals understand the current political climate at their college/university before sharing data. Sharing departmental assessment data has the potential to have tremendous influence on how other departments and individuals perceive your department and therefore one may need to make difficult decisions as to who should have the opportunity to review the data. At Syracuse University, there is a tremendous value on assessment and the sharing of assessment results to improve services and programs and therefore sharing the results was beneficial. At other institutions, the context may be very different and therefore sharing the data could have departmental consequences. THE FUTURE OF DIVERSITY ASSESSMENT AT SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY A Divisional Approach - Although the instrument used was fairly good at providing data about student’s perceptions of their residence hall experience, it did not provide any data about students perceptions of other campus environments (i.e. classroom, walking around campus, student organization meetings, etc.) in which students spend a significant amount of time. Therefore, the scope of the assessment project has been greatly increased. As a result, there are many more people involved in developing the instrument that is going to be used in March 2002 to collect data about student's experiences with diversity across the campus. Rather than this project being something that two or three people work on within the Office of Residence Life, there are many professionals within the Division of Student Affairs that currently work on this project. Qualitative Methods - In order to understand how students believe their residential experience could be improved in the area of diversity, professionals in the Office of Residence Life will be conducting focus groups. Furthermore, focus groups will provide the Office of Residence Life with a greater understanding as to why certain student perceptions exist and what can be done to change student perceptions. Continuous Improvement - The data collected from year-to-year about how students experience diversity will continue to be used to make educated policy and program decisions. Furthermore, the data gives a "voice" to students' experiences, which will continue to be used to facilitate dialogue amongst professionals that work within the Division of Student Affairs at Syracuse University. About the Authors Joshua G. McIntosh completed his Bachelor of Science in Biology at Elon University in 1997 and then completed his Master of Arts in Student Development at Appalachian State University in 1999. He currently serves as the Coordinator for Assessment and a Residence Director in the Office of Residence Life at Syracuse University. He can be reached via e-mail at jgmcinto@syr.edu, via web at http://survey.syr.edu, or via phone at 315-443-3637. Sarah Young completed her Bachelor of Arts in History at Hamilton College in 1998 and then completed her Master of Arts in Community Counseling at West Virginia University in 2001. Sarah currently serves as a Residence Director in the Office of Residence Life at Syracuse University. She can be reached via e-mail at smyoun01@syr.edu or via phone at 315-443-5041.