Pilot Study Could Shake Up College Rankings II: Intellectual Intimidation

Published on May 15, 2008 - 7:36:18 AM

By: Campus Tolerance Foundation

NEW YORK, May 14 - When families weigh their choices on which college their children should attend, they tend to focus on cost, academic reputation and campus amenities. The Campus Tolerance Foundation today released analysis based on new research that calls for colleges and universities to provide more information to families about the atmosphere on campus, especially the treatment students can expect to face as members of racial, ethnic, gender or intellectual minorities.

The analysis released today focuses on the environment minorities encounter on college campuses, one of the major areas of the pilot study "If I'd Only Known: University Students Talk About Tolerance and Safety on Campus, A Pilot Study to Develop Tolerance Ratings" The report, full questionnaire and top line data for each college are at: www.publicagenda.org/campustolerance.

The pilot research gives reason for concern, according to The Campus Tolerance Foundation, and suggests a need for broader research. The initial research found that more students reported seeing graffiti or hearing verbal insults aimed at political conservatives than any other group asked about. Seventy-one percent said they'd witnessed such intimidation aimed at conservatives on campus, while only 46 percent said they'd seen the same aimed at sexual minorities, 31 percent aimed at African Americans, 28 percent aimed at Hispanics and 29 percent aimed at Muslims. In another question, students indicated that the professor population seemed to be split roughly equally between those "who advocate for their point of view in class and leave it to the students to seek out alternative viewpoints" and those "who make sure to bring in different viewpoints and encourage students to consider competing theories.

The overall goal of the research project is to eventually develop a comprehensive, broadly-accepted national survey mechanism that fairly assesses the atmosphere on 200 college campuses across the nation. As a pilot study fielded online, aimed at assessing the viability of possible large-scale survey research with a random sample, the research findings should be considered with interest, but not as a scientific conclusion about the atmosphere on campus

This pilot research was conducted by FDR Group for the Campus Tolerance Foundation. Support for the pilot research was provided to the Campus Tolerance Foundation by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Irvin Stern Foundation.

Campus Tolerance Foundation www.campustolerance.com

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