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CU-Boulder Campus Climate Survey, Fall 2006

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GLBT)

In order to ensure that a sufficient number of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) students were surveyed, we made a special effort to solicit their participation. At our request, the director of the campus GLBT Resource Center sent an e-mail to students on the Center's mailing list encouraging them to complete the survey. It is important to note that non-GLBT persons having an interest in GLBT issues could also be on the mailing list. To determine whether the 43 survey respondents who were on the mailing list were GLBT persons, we evaluated their responses to an item concerning sexual preference. Of these 43 respondents, 21 were excluded from the analyses because they either did not respond to the question about sexual preference (n = 5) or self-identified  as heterosexual (n=15) or asexual (n=1). We will refer to the 22 respondents from the Center’s mailing list that were included in the analyses as "GLBT Center" students.

We could not, of course, identify GLBT persons from student records data and therefore did not include them in the sampling design. Of those students in the random sample, 34 were included in the GLBT group analyses based on their responses to the sexual preference question.

For analysis purposes, we have compared the responses of three groups: GLBT Center students (n = 22), students from the random sample who self-identified as GLBT (n = 34), and non-GLBT students (from the random sample; n = 557). Because both the GLBT Center students and the GLBT students from the random sample were not part of the sampling design for the survey, it is possible that their responses are not representative of the population of all GLBT students at CU-Boulder. The results described in this section should therefore be carefully interpreted with this limitation in mind.

GLBT Center Students Compared to GLBT Students in the Random Sample

GLBT Center students view the campus quite differently from GLBT students in the random sample. Specifically, GLBT Center students:

• Are somewhat less satisfied overall with CU-Boulder
• Say they are more likely to hear disparaging remarks:
  • from students targeted at women, GLBT persons, and people with disabilities
  • from faculty targeted at women, GLBT persons, men, and people with strong religious beliefs
• Rate the environment as more hostile:
  • find the classroom environment to be more sexist, racist, and homophobic, less accessible to persons with disabilities, and less accepting of diversity
  • find the environment outside the classroom to be more sexist, racist, homophobic; and less accessible to people with disabilities, and accepting of diversity
  • report seeing more negative graffiti on campus
• Are less likely to think faculty, student government, students, university staff and administrators, and the Boulder community value diversity; are more likely to think diversity should be a high priority for the university.
• Have more contact with GLBT students and less contact with persons having disabilities; and are more comfortable at the UMC, participating in campus ethnic activities and getting counseling, but slightly less comfortable on the Hill (a residential/commercial area adjacent to campus), using the recreation center, and living in the residence halls

GLBT Center students are also more likely to list their sexual orientation as their most important group identity in terms of how they are treated on campus. More than half (59%) of GLBT Center students listed sexual orientation as their most important group identity, while only 9% of GLBT students in the random sample did so.

Because analyses verified that the climate is reported differently by the GLBT students in the random sample compared with the GLBT Center students, we kept these groups separate for analysis purposes. Both groups are contrasted with non-GLBT students.

Highlights

The GLBT students' reports of the CU-Boulder campus climate are not overly negative; nonetheless, in many cases, they are not particularly positive either. For the most part, responses from the GLBT Center students are more negative than responses from the GLBT students in the random sample and from the non-GLBT students. However, in a few areas, both groups of GLBT students look more similar to one another than to the non-GLBT students.

Both GLBT Center students and GLBT students in the random sample rate the campus as somewhat less friendly and welcoming as compared to the non-GLBT students. GLBT students report feeling "different" at a rather high rate; more than a third (38%) of the randomly-selected GLBT students and nearly half (45%) of the GLBT Center students say they "often" or "very often" feel different. In comparison, just over a quarter (29%) of the non-GLBT students report feeling different this frequently.

On several indicators of campus climate, the campus is rated less hospitable by GLBT students in the random sample than by GLBT Center students and non-GLBT students. For example, GLBT students in the random sample feel disconnected and left out more often than the other two groups of students. They also feel supported less often than do students in the other two groups.  These findings likely reflect, at least in part, the fact that GLBT students affiliated with the GLBT Student Center may derive support and understanding from that particular campus group. GLBT students in the random sample students also report lower levels of comfort with getting counseling and support and with participating in campus social activities. Both groups of GLBT students are less comfortable than non-GLBT students using the recreation center or hanging out on the Hill. On the other hand, they report higher levels of comfort interacting with faculty outside of class than do non-GLBT students.

Although all students report rarely hearing faculty members make disparaging comments about others, GLBT students report hearing such comments—about women, men, GLBT persons, racial or ethnic minorities, people with strong religious beliefs, whites, UCB students from states other than Colorado, and international students—more often than do non-GLBT students. About half of non-GLBT students and GLBT students in the random sample report that faculty members and course instructors value diversity "very much," compared with less than a quarter of GLBT Center students.

Unfortunately, disparaging remarks made by other students are less rare than those made by faculty. Over a quarter (27%) of the GLBT Center students say they "often" or "constantly" hear students make disparaging remarks targeted at the GLBT population. They also report frequently hearing other students make disparaging remarks targeted at women, people with disabilities, people with strong religious beliefs, and ethnic/racial minorities. Fewer, but still a noticeable percentage (20%) of GLBT students in the random sample report often hearing disparaging remarks from students targeted at the GLBT population; and many students in this group also report frequently hearing other students make disparaging remarks targeted at women, ethnic/racial minorities, whites, and, especially, people with strong religious beliefs.

Compared with students in the other two groups, GLBT Center students report that they are much more likely to challenge derogatory comments or behaviors regarding gender and sexual orientation. GLBT students in the random sample report that they are much more likely to challenge derogatory comments or behaviors regarding religion; students in this group are somewhat less likely to challenge derogatory comments or behaviors regarding race or ethnicity.

Given the low frequency of disparaging remarks from faculty, it is not surprising that all students indicate having significantly more negative experiences on campus outside of the classroom than inside of the classroom. Specifically, both the GLBT and non-GLBT students' perceptions of sexism, disrespect, incivility, racism, and homophobia are considerably greater outside versus inside the classroom. Further, these experiences are more pronounced for GLBT students than for non-GLBT students, and especially so for GLBT Center students. GLBT Center students are more likely to see the classroom as sexist, racist, and homophobic; their ratings on these dimensions outside the classroom are even more negative. Although GLBT students in the random sample also report somewhat negative views of the classroom and outside environment, their ratings are generally somewhat more favorable than the GLBT Center students.

As stated earlier, the GLBT Center students are much more likely than the GLBT students in the random sample to list sexual orientation as their most important group membership. While sexual orientation is the most frequently-listed group identity for GLBT Center students (59%), race/ethnicity is the most frequently-listed group identity for the GLBT students in the random sample (24% race/ethnicity versus 9% sexual orientation).

Graphs of scale scores by GLBT status

Last revision 08/29/07