Professional Documents
Culture Documents
14, 2019
CONTACT:
Kay Jarvis
Director of Public Affairs and Issues Management
(541) 346-5558
kdjarvis@uoregon.edu
RELEASE DATE:
Oct. 15, 2019 – 6 a.m.
EUGENE, Ore - A national survey shows the University of Oregon continues to make progress
addressing sexual misconduct and violence on campus but still has work to do to encourage
students to access support services and file reports.
The Association of American Universities 2019 Campus Climate Survey conducted at the UO
showed a small reduction in the percentage of nonconsensual sexual contact reported by
students and an overall increase in their knowledge of how to seek help. The percentage of
students who say they believe campus officials will take reports of sexual assault or misconduct
seriously also increased.
“The results show improvements but also continued cause for concern,” said Darci Heroy,
associate vice president, chief civil rights officer and title IX coordinator, who over saw the UO’s
survey. “There are encouraging signs that the university’s prevention education and response
programs are working. However, while students know more about resources, the results
indicate that they do not feel comfortable enough utilizing these services.
“These results will continue to help us better understand what the barriers are to reporting so
that we can adapt our approaches and policies.”
The UO joined 32 other universities in in the national survey of students last spring as a follow-
up to the 2015 Campus Climate survey. The AAU also released an aggregate report of the
trends across all 33 universities that participated in the 2019 survey.
UO President Michael H. Schill said he wanted the university to participate in the national
survey again because of the opportunity to assess the university’s investments in prevention
and support programs.
“Any amount of sexual violence or assault on our campus or anywhere is unacceptable,” Schill
said. “I am encouraged by the reduction in sexual assault prevalence and increased confidence
in and awareness of services, however this does not mean we can be complacent. We will use
what we learn from this survey to continue to refine and improve our programs. Ensuring our
students are safe, supported and know how to get help is absolutely critical to their success at
the university.”
“I am grateful for the collaborative work of our prevention and response staff with the faculty
and units across campus to help educate, safeguard and support our students. Their work
remains as important as ever.”
A team of AAU university experts worked to design the survey, which included optional
customization of university-specific questions. The AAU partnered with Westat, a leading social
science research firm, to design and administer the survey in spring of this year. The
participating colleges and universities were provided their own campus-specific data to further
inform how to address sexual assault and misconduct on campus.
The university will continue to analyze the survey data during the coming academic year. The
Division of Student Life’s Office of Assessment & Research, in collaboration with Sexual
Violence Prevention and the UO’s Prevention Sciences Program, will be working to identify
trends specific to the UO and provide an update with recommendations later this academic
year.
“We are interested to see if any additional specific trends about our campus emerge from the
climate survey data,” Heroy said. “Any additional insights we can collect from this data will help
us further address these issues on our campus and hopefully better support marginalized and
intersectional communities that experience higher rates of sexual assault and misconduct.”
The AAU Campus Climate Survey is one of several institutional surveys and assessments for the
university. Other surveys and assessments include the student-directed employee survey and
the annual Clery report, among others.
For more information on the 2019 and 2015 climate surveys, visit the Office of Investigations
and Civil Rights Compliance website.
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