Brown has conducted campus climate surveys over the years to help shape the living, learning and working experience at the University for students, faculty and staff. Understanding deeply the varied experiences of our community is a critical part of continuing to improve how we work toward creating a more inclusive and equitable campus environment. More specifically, the 2025-26 Campus Climate Survey will directly inform the creation of a new plan for diversity and inclusion at Brown, allowing us to develop a broad, whole-campus approach and to re-commit to embracing a diversity of perspectives, ideas and experiences as part of our academic mission, while complying with the law.

The survey will be administered first to all students from October 28, 2025, through November 21, 2025. The follow-up survey for faculty and staff will be administered in the spring of 2026. Rankin Climate will deliver anonymous findings to University leaders later in spring 2026.

The target participation in the survey is all students, faculty and staff at Brown. Every response matters and is valuable in providing the most beneficial feedback and results. When you receive the survey, please complete it and encourage your community to do the same! We want your voices to be central to the University’s future plans. As a thank you for contributing time to this important effort, every student who completes the survey will receive a $20 gift card for use at a local coffee shop or the Brown Bookstore.

It is important in surveys for participants to “see” themselves in response choices to prevent “othering” an individual or an individual’s characteristics. Some researchers maintain that assigning someone to the status of “other” is a form of marginalization and should be minimized, particularly in workplace climate research, which has an intended purpose of inclusiveness. Along these lines, survey respondents will see a list of possible choices for many demographic questions. However, it is reasonably impossible to include every possible choice for every question, but the goal is to reduce the number of respondents who must choose “other.”

The survey will be administered to all students at Brown. Campus climate exists in micro-climates, so creating opportunities to maximize participation is important, as well as maximizing opportunities to reach all populations. Along these lines, Rankin Climate, LLC has recommended not using random sampling as we may “miss” particular populations where numbers are very small (e.g., Native American staff). Since one goal of the project is inclusiveness and allowing invisible “voices” to be heard, this sampling technique is not used. In addition, randomized stratified sampling is not used because we do not have population data on most identities. For example, Brown collects population data on gender identity and racial identity, but not on disability status or sexual identity. A sample approach could miss many groups.

Rankin Climate, LLC will provide an anonymized key findings summary of the most salient findings from the results. The report will provide high-level summaries of the findings and will identify themes found in the data. Generalizations for populations are limited to those groups or subgroups with response rates of at least 30%.

The purpose of conducting the survey is to assess the campus climate for students, faculty and staff at Brown University and to identify successes and opportunities for improvement. Brown is committed to being transparent, so the aggregate, anonymized results of the survey will be shared with the campus and with key community stakeholders. As required by the University’s July 30 agreement with the federal government, the survey includes a few specific questions, among many others that we will use to assess campus climate. We will provide the aggregate, anonymized results of the survey to the government and the campus community, along with our analysis of the survey and any actions we intend to take in response.

While participation in the survey is entirely voluntary, completing the survey is an important way to demonstrate a commitment to continuing the work of building a better Brown. If you want your voice to be central to Brown’s future plans, we strongly encourage you to complete this survey. Participants do not have to answer every question and can skip any questions they consider uncomfortable. However, the answer to every question matters.

At no time will individualized identifiable data be provided to Brown, and therefore Brown has no ability to report any identifiable information to any parties. Confidentiality is vital to the success of campus climate research, particularly as sensitive and personal topics are discussed. While the survey cannot guarantee complete confidentiality because of the nature of multiple demographic questions, the external firm managing the survey, Rankin Climate, LLC, will take multiple precautionary measures to enhance individual confidentiality and the de-identification of data. No data already protected through regulation or policy (e.g., Social Security number, campus identification number, medical information) is obtained through the survey. In the event of any publication or presentation resulting from the survey, no personally identifiable information will be shared. 

Confidentiality in participating will be maintained to the highest degree permitted by the technology used (e.g., IP addresses will be stripped when the survey is submitted). Rankin Climate runs the survey via Qualtrics, whose servers are protected by high-end firewall systems, and scans are performed regularly to ensure that any vulnerabilities are quickly identified and patched. Qualtrics uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption (also known as HTTPS) to protect transmitted data. Access to Rankin Climate surveys is restricted and audited for compliance. In addition, Rankin Climate will not report any group data for position or demographic groups of fewer than fifteen individuals, which may be small enough to compromise confidentiality. Instead, Rankin Climate will combine the groups to eliminate any potential identifiable demographic information. Additionally, any comments submitted in response to the survey will be separated at the time of submission to prevent attribution to any individual demographic characteristics. Identifiable information submitted in qualitative comments will be redacted, and Brown University will only receive these redacted comments.

Rankin Climate uses a research data security description and protocol, which includes specific information on data encryption, the handling of personally identifiable information, physical security, and a protocol for handling potential data security breaches. The data from online participants will be submitted to a secure server hosted by the consultant. All Rankin Climate analysts have CITI (Human Subjects) training and approval and have worked on similar projects for other institutions. No institutional identifiers are included in the full merged data set held by Rankin Climate. The raw unit-level data with institutional identifiers is kept on the server for six months and then destroyed. Rankin Climate will notify the committee chairs of any breach or suspected breach of data security of the consultant’s server.