Columbia Employee Climate and Engagement Survey Frequently Asked Questions

• “Engagement” refers to what we can learn from employees’ experiences about how they think, act, and feel about Columbia’s environment and policies. Taken together, this gives us a sense of how they may feel about the University as a whole.
• Research tells us that community engagement influences the levels to which faculty, researchers, staff, and administrators thrive. For example, when staff feel engaged, they report higher levels of perceived purpose, motivation, and enthusiasm. They have a positive mental and emotional state, leading to higher job satisfaction, reduced stress levels, and improved overall health.  

• Rankin Climate, our consultant, developed a repository of tested questions based on their experience administering climate surveys at more than 300 institutions across the nation. To assist in contextualizing the survey for Columbia University and to capitalize on the many survey efforts already undertaken, the CSWG was formed. The committee is responsible for developing the survey questions. The team reviewed and adapted selected survey questions from the consultant’s 2025 tested collection.

• It is important in faculty, researchers, staff, and administrators surveys for participants to “see” themselves in response choices. Along these lines, survey respondents will see a list of possible choices for many demographic questions. It is 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 faculty, researchers, staff, and administrators at Columbia University, excluding those primarily employed at Barnard College, Teachers College, Union Theological Seminary, and Jewish Theological Seminary. Workplace 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, the consultant 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 allowing all “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. A sample approach could miss many groups.

• The target participation in the survey is all faculty, researchers, staff, and administrators at Columbia University. Every response matters and is valuable in providing feedback and results.

• 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%. 

• The purpose of conducting the survey is to assess the workplace climate for faculty, researchers, staff, and administrators at Columbia University and to identify successes and opportunities for improvement. 

• Privacy is vital to the success of campus climate research, particularly as sensitive and personal topics are discussed. While the survey cannot guarantee complete provacy because of the nature of demographic questions asked, the consultant will take multiple precautionary measures to enhance privacy 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.
• Privacy 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 found 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 15 individuals, which may be small enough to compromise privacy. 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 the University will only receive these redacted comments.
• Information in the introductory section of the survey will describe how privacy will be guaranteed, and additional communication to participants will provide expanded information on the nature of privacy, possible threats to privacy, and procedures developed to ensure de-identification of data.

• It’s important to remember that all comments in this survey remain de-identified regardless of the nature of the comment. Workplace issues such as violence, harassment, racism, or illegal activity can be reported here. This survey is not an effective place to report such issues.  

• 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.
• The consultant has conducted more than 300 institutional surveys and maintains an aggregate merged database. The data from the Columbia University 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 (Cynthia Punzalan Langin, senior associate provost for institutional research) with a data file upon project completion.

• The committee is made up of the Climate Survey Working Group.

• In reviewing efforts by other 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 campus climate is likely to yield higher response rates and provide more credible findings if led by an independent, outside agency. Members of a university community may feel particularly inhibited from responding honestly to a survey administered by their own institution for fear of retaliation.

• After a review of potential vendors, Columbia’s administration selected Rankin Climate, LLC.
• Rankin Climate has been working with college campuses for over 20 years and has conducted similar surveys on more than 300 college campuses nationwide.
• Their process highly prioritizes protecting respondents' privacy and is transparent. No protected data is used in the project. 

• Our webpage is the best place to learn more. You can find peer-reviewed research on campus climate, ways to get involved and more.
• We will also be sending updates and invitations to get involved via email. 

The timing of the survey results release reflects the care taken to ensure the findings were appropriately contextualized and thoughtfully reviewed.  This included comparing results from earlier surveys across Schools and peer institutions, as well as incorporating input from University stakeholders on how best to share the findings and support a coordinated response.

Now that the University-level findings are public, the Office of Planning and Institutional Research (OPIR) will continue to share more targeted and actionable analyses with campus leaders and stakeholders in the coming months. The release of findings so far is part of an ongoing process, and the University will continue engaging with and responding to the findings moving forward.

“Sense of belonging” was measured using a multi-item scale rather than a single survey question. This approach, per Rankin Climate (now Interwoven Insights), provides a more reliable and valid way to assess complex concepts like belonging.

Slide 10 presents group comparisons based on this scale. Only groups with statistically significant differences are shown. This means that the differences observed between those groups are unlikely to be due to chance and therefore meet established standards for reporting.

These findings reflect a first, high-level analysis. OPIR will conduct additional, more detailed analyses to further explore patterns across the Columbia community.

The quotations included in the slide deck were drawn from open-ended survey responses and selected through a thematic analysis conducted by Rankin Climate (now Interwoven Insights).

This process identifies recurring themes across many responses and selects illustrative quotes that help add context and nuance to the quantitative findings. The quotes are intended to highlight common patterns in the data, not to represent consensus or the views of any specific group.

To protect respondent privacy, identifiable text responses were not shared with Columbia. All quotations included in the report were vetted and anonymized by the external research team prior to inclusion.