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Assessing the Climate for CCP's LGBTQ Students, Faculty, and Staff

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Assessing the Climate for CCP's LGBTQ Students, Faculty, and Staff OMMUNITY OLLEGE OF HILADELPHIA C C P Assessing the Climate for CCP’s LGBTQ Students, Faculty, and Staff Results of the 2011-2012 Campus Climate Survey J. Alison Watts Jason Popp 2013 Sponsored by: President’s Diversity Council The Fox Rothschild Center for Law and Society The Faculty and Staff Gay-Straight Alliance TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 2 RATIONALE AND METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................ 3 QUANTITATIVE RESULTS ........................................................................................................ 3 QUALITATIVE RESULTS ......................................................................................................... 14 RECOMMENDATIONS .............................................................................................................. 19 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 22 APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................. 2 1 INTRODUCTION The college experience is a time when students are often exposed to challenging new ideas and introduced to people with very different backgrounds. While this can be an environment that fosters positive intellectual and emotional growth, some students face unique challenges due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity (Rankin 2003). Campus climates that are perceived to be negative and hostile toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) campus members contribute to lower success rates and higher drop-out rates among this group (GLSEN, 2009). The increased concern of retention and persistence among community college students calls for a heightened emphasis on creating an inclusive and supportive campus climate for our LGBTQ student population. The College acknowledges the importance of a diverse community in its Mission Statement, Core Values, Diversity Plan and Strategic Plan. The value of a diverse community and a commitment to increasing the success of marginalized groups that have historically been underserved by higher education are consistent themes in the goals and plans outlined by the College. The Vision Statement of the College’s Diversity Plan succinctly represents the College’s stated position on diversity: The Community College of Philadelphia aspires to be a place where the quality of education is enhanced and enriched by a diverse campus community. We envision a campus environment that places high value and respect for all people and believes that diversity is essential. We envision a campus that acknowledges and addresses the special needs of groups and individuals who historically have faced institutional barriers. We envision a campus climate that affirms and endorses our diversity. The College has taken efforts to support several identified groups in its dedication to diversity; mainly those facing discrimination based on race, ethnicity, culture, and ability. Unfortunately, the concerns facing members of the College community based on gender identity and sexual orientation have largely been ignored by the College and excluded in its definition of and commitment to diversity. 2 RATIONALE AND METHODOLOGY Our assessment was informed by Smith et al. (1997) who developed the transformational tapestry model of campus climate to assist institutions in maximizing equity through the use of specific assessment and intervention strategies. The model, which takes into account five main aspects of campus culture (access and retention, research and scholarship, inter-group and intra- group relations, curriculum and pedagogy, and college service), is designed to reduce hostility and discrimination toward LGBTQ campus members and foster an inclusive atmosphere. The first phase of the transformational tapestry model calls for an institution to conduct an internal assessment of the campus culture for the LGBTQ population. This model informs our campus- wide gender and sexuality survey assessment as the first step in maximizing campus equity and inclusion. We constructed a survey instrument adapted from Rankin’s (2003) “Assessment of Campus Climate for LGBT Persons” that was distributed to the College community in both paper form and online (see Appendix A for a copy of the survey instrument). The paper survey was distributed at campus events and to students in the classroom. The link to the online survey was circulated to all employees via email through the college’s campus announcement system. Data collection took place during the fall and spring semesters in the 2011-2012 academic year. QUANTITATIVE RESULTS The survey was administered to 1,061 students, faculty, and staff. Most of the respondents (72%) were CCP students. Of these students, 23% identified their sexual orientation as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (see Figure 1). Most of the students were black or white females under the age of 33 (see Figures 2, 3, and 4). For more information about the demographics of all respondents, please see the Appendix B. In this assessment, we compared the responses of LGBTQ students and LGBTQ employees at CCP, who comprised 20% of all employee responses, with the overall response or non-LGBTQ respondents (see Figure 5). In general, the respondents did not feel the need to conceal their sexual identities to protect themselves from harassment, discrimination, prejudice, or any danger that would threaten their physical safety (see Table 1). Furthermore, there was a low rate of concealment and fear for physical safety within the last year (see Table 2). However, 3 LGBTQ respondents’ rates of concealment were still much higher than the overall response rates. LGBTQ students were four times more likely to conceal their sexual identities than all respondents were. They felt significantly less safe than their employee counterparts (66% versus 86%), who more often concealed their identities to avoid harassment. Despite higher rates of concealment, most of the LGBTQ respondents (89%) reported varying degrees of comfort in disclosing their sexual orientation. A plurality of LGBTQ respondents (41%) reported being totally “out” to others about their sexual orientation, while another 5% indicated that they do not disclose their sexual orientation to anyone (see Figure 6). In the classroom, two-thirds of LGBTQ faculty do not avoid disclosing their sexual orientation and/or gender identity to their students (see Table 4). In the same vein, most LGBTQ employees (79%) do not avoid disclosing their sexual orientation and/or identity to their colleagues or superior for fear of reprisal and none (0%) reported denial of employment or promotion due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. Harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity are prohibited at CCP under its affirmative action/equal opportunity employment policy. Overall, respondents were largely unaware of any harassment of LGBTQ persons at CCP (see Table 3). However, LGBTQ students and employees reported consistently higher rates of harassment than their heterosexual peers. The harassment rate of gay males was more than one and half times higher among LGBTQ respondents than the rate reported by heterosexuals. A significant number of LGBTQ employees (40%) also felt that transgender persons at the College were more likely to be the target of harassment. In contrast, LGBTQ students were mostly unaware of any harassment of members of the transgender community. Of those respondents who experienced harassment within the last year (n = 27), the most common form of harassment was derogatory remarks (96%), followed by verbal threats (56%), which occurred more frequently in a public space or while walking on campus. A student or unknown person was the most likely source of harassment (see Tables 4A and 4B). LGBTQ employees and students held significantly different views of the College’s response to harassment and discrimination. LGBTQ employees were more likely to find the College lacking the resources and leadership needed to address issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity (see Figures 7 and 8). They also tended to believe that the 4 curriculum does not adequately represent the contributions of the LGBT community (see Figure 9). Similar to all respondents, LGBTQ students were uncertain if any leadership, resources, or curricula existed on campus that were dedicated to the development of the LGBT community. Both LGBTQ students and employees found their classrooms and worksites to be accepting places for LGBT (see Figure 10). However, most respondents, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, did not know if CCP had a rapid response system to report incidents of LGBT discrimination or harassment (see Figures 11 and 12). Figure 1 Figure 2 Sexual Orientation of Gender of LGBTQ Students Students (n = 169) (n = 738) Female Male LGBTQ Non-LGBTQ TransGender OtHer 36% 23% 3% 3% 77% 59% Figure 3 Age of LGBTQ Students (n = 168) 22 and under 23-32 33-42 43-52 53 and over 34% 34% 19% 2% 11% 5 Figure 4 Race of LGBTQ Students (n = 169) 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 41% Percent 40% 32% 30% 20% 9% 7% 5% 10% 4% 1% 1% 0% Black WHite Multiracial Hispanic Asian Middle Native Unknown Eastern American Race Figure 5 Sexual Orientation of Employees (n
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