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CU-Boulder Campus Climate Survey, Fall 2006

Gender and Class Standing

Climate data were analyzed separately by gender and class standing to determine how men's and women's and graduate and undergraduate students' experiences on the Boulder campus differ. The number of students in each group is:

Gender

Overall, there are few differences between the genders in their response to the CU-Boulder campus climate survey. In general, students of both genders report having had quite positive experiences at UCB and in the community at large.

The greatest divergence in the men and women's responses is for reports of how likely they say they are to challenge derogatory remarks and/or behavior. In all cases, women report that they are more likely than men to challenge such remarks and/or behavior. For students at both class standings, this gender difference is particularly pronounced when the derogatory remarks and/or behavior concern gender. For graduate students only, the gender difference is also noticeably pronounced when the derogatory remarks and/or behavior concern religion.

Women's and men's ratings of climate, both inside and outside of the classroom are generally positive, with higher ratings for in-classroom than outside-classroom climate. Women report more often hearing students make disparaging remarks about others, including women, people with strong religious beliefs, GLBT persons, and non-English speakers. Although all students report rarely hearing faculty members make disparaging remarks or comments about others, undergraduate women report hearing such comments somewhat more often than do undergraduate men.

As one might expect, women are much more likely than men to list their gender as their most important group identity in how they are treated on campus. Seven percent of women listed their gender as central compared to only 1% of men.

Class Standing

In general, there are not many differences in reports of campus climate between graduate and undergraduate students. Both groups of students report moderate to high levels of comfort in various social and academic settings.

The most noteworthy discrepancy between undergraduates and graduates is in their ratings of how comfortable they would feel in class or interacting with faculty, especially with respect to interacting with faculty during office hours or outside the classroom and with respect to expressing opinions in class. Graduate students report somewhat greater comfort which could reflect, to some extent, the nature of the relationship between graduate students and faculty, which is often more personalized, with more frequent interactions both in and out of the classroom, as well as the greater maturity of graduate students compared with undergraduates.

Undergraduates and graduates also differ in their ratings of how often they hear other students make disparaging remarks about various groups. In nearly all cases, graduate students report hearing fewer such remarks than do undergraduate students. Undergraduates report most often hearing disparaging remarks targeted at women, people with strong religious beliefs, the gay community (GLBT), and racial/ethnic minorities; graduate students report a relatively high frequency of remarks targeted at people with strong religious beliefs, women, and GLBT persons.

As one would expect, undergraduate students report that they would feel more comfortable living in the residence halls; undergraduate students also report that they would feel somewhat more comfortable using the Student Recreation Center and participating in campus social life. Undergraduates' reported hypothetical level of comfort in interacting with the police is less than that of graduates. This is particularly noticeable among the women students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. These findings are likely due to the fewer actual encounters that both graduate and female students have had with city and campus police (as shown in campus statistics).

Both graduate and undergraduate students agree that faculty members and course instructors value diversity, and all students report rarely hearing faculty members make disparaging comments about others.

Both groups have varied contacts with other students during the course of their studies. Graduate students, however, report having more frequent interactions with non-native English speakers than do undergraduate students. Graduate students' more frequent contact with such students is not surprising given the number of international scholars who come to UCB to study at the graduate level.

The two groups show strong similarities with regard to the identity that is most central to how they are treated on campus. For both undergraduate and graduate students, the largest percentages cite race/ethnicity, academic major, or academic group (such as a research laboratory or scholars program) as important. Ten percent of graduate students, however, list their international status as important compared to only 1% of undergraduates. Graduate students are also more likely to list their graduate-level standing as most important; 5% say graduate student versus less than 1% of undergraduates who reference their class standing. Only 1% of graduate students list athletic affiliation as important, compared to 6% of undergraduates.

Graphs of scale scores by gender and class standing

Last revision 08/29/07