Campus Climate Frequently Asked Questions

Rankin Climate, which serves as the outside consultant for Pomona College’s climate survey, defines campus climate as, “the current attitudes and behaviors of faculty, staff, administrators, and students, as well as institutional policies and procedures, that influence the level of respect for individual needs, abilities, and potential.” The climate is often shaped through personal experiences, perceptions and institutional efforts.

The campus climate at Pomona shapes the lives of all of us—students, staff, and faculty. A deep understanding of our community’s varied experiences is a critical part of continuing to improve how we work towards creating a more inclusive and equitable campus environment.

The idea to conduct the Pomona Climate Survey originated from senior leaders who believed data from such a survey might be useful in planning for the future and improving the environment for students, faculty, and staff at Pomona.

This qualitative and quantitative research effort will allow us to better understand our community’s experiences. Research tells us that thriving campus climates contribute directly to overall success for students, staff, and faculty. The information we collect will help us better understand how members of our community experience their environment. This is an opportunity for you to ensure your voice is part of this effort.

When we launch the survey in February 2026, please fill out the survey and encourage your communities to do the same! Spread the word and help us ensure that everyone is involved in this process. Ensuring inclusive and equitable campus experiences for all members of the Pomona community requires us to deeply listen and understand these often disparate experiences. You can help us gather voices!

Rankin Climate, our consultant, developed a repository of tested questions from administering climate assessments at approximately 350 institutions across the nation. To assist in contextualizing the survey for Pomona, and to capitalize on the many assessment efforts already undertaken, the CSWG was formed. The committee is responsible for developing the survey questions. The team will review selected survey questions from the consultant’s tested collection

Since one goal of the survey project is inclusivity, the survey will be administered to all students and employees at Pomona. Because overall climate consists of micro-climates, it is important to create opportunities to maximize participation and reach all demographics, especially populations with smaller total representation. Along these lines, Rankin Climate has recommended not using random sampling as we may accidentally omit particular populations. In addition, we do not have population data for some identities. For example, Pomona collects population data on gender identity and racial identity, but not on disability status or sexual identity. Therefore, a randomized stratified sampling approach could accidentally omit groups we want to hear from.

Our goal is full participation from all students, faculty, and staff. Every response matters and is valuable in providing the most beneficial feedback and results.

Participation in the survey is completely voluntary. Additionally, participants do not have to answer every question and can skip any questions they consider to be uncomfortable.

Committee members include faculty, staff and students.

In reviewing efforts by other colleges and universities to conduct comprehensive culture climate studies, several best practices were identified. One was the need for external expertise in survey administration. The administration of a survey relating to a very sensitive subject like climate is likely to yield higher response rates and provide more credible findings if led by an independent, outside agency. Members of a college community may feel particularly inhibited to respond honestly to a survey administered by their own institution.

The consultant, Rankin Climate, will provide a 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%.

Although the committee believes the survey process itself is informative, we have sought and received commitment from the College’s senior leaders that the survey data will be used to plan for an improved environment at Pomona. The findings will serve as a guide for creating an action plan that accounts for the identified opportunities for improvement.

Submitting the survey to Pomona’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) is an important step of the campus climate study project. There are several benefits to going through this process, even if the survey is considered to be "exempt" or "not human subjects research." Firstly, it provides further assurance to participants that their survey responses will remain confidential. In addition, an IRB review provides some cache to the study in the eyes of those who conduct research professionally, such as faculty members and scientists. These individuals understand what an IRB review requires and the protections for the data to which research professionals commit.

The primary investigator from Pomona for the IRB process is Elizabeth Graham, Ph.D., Director of Institutional Research at Pomona. An IRB application will be submitted for the project. The survey will be administered once the project is approved.

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 consultant 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 assessment, 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 are never recorded). The survey is run by RC via Qualtrics, whose servers are protected by high-end firewall systems and scans are performed regularly to ensure that any vulnerabilities are quickly found and patched. Qualtrics uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption (also known as HTTPS) to protect transmitted data. Access to RC surveys is restricted and audited for compliance. In addition, RC will not report any position or demographic group data for groups of fewer than fifteen individuals, which may be small enough to compromise confidentiality. Instead, RC 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 the consultant so they are not attributed to any individual demographic characteristics. Identifiable information submitted in qualitative comments will be redacted if any direct quotes are used in the results report.

Information in the introductory section of the survey will describe the manner in which confidentiality will be guaranteed, and additional communication to participants will provide expanded information on the nature of confidentiality, possible threats to confidentiality and procedures developed to ensure de-identification of data.

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 unlikely breaches of data security. 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.

The consultant has conducted approximately 350 institutional surveys and maintains an aggregate merged database. The data from the Pomona project will be merged with all other existing campus data stored indefinitely on the consultant’s secure server. No institutional identifiers are included in the full merged data set held by the consultant. The raw unit-level data with institutional identifiers is kept on the server for six months and then destroyed. The consultant will notify the committee chairs of any breach or suspected breach of data security of the consultant’s server.

The consultant will provide the primary investigator with a data file at the completion of the project.