Administrators heard an update on Iowa State’s campus diversity climate Thursday, but the results of the survey won’t be public until the official report comes out later this year.

Carla Espinoza, co-chairwoman of the President’s Advisory Commission on Diversity, said overall, the campus climate is not very welcoming.

“I think we have some work to do,” she said after reviewing the results of the survey.

In January, Susan Rankin, senior research associate at Rankin and Associates Consulting, distributed the “campus climate” survey at Iowa State. The survey was taken in an attempt to examine diversity issues at Iowa State.

“This was not in response to a negative event,” Rankin said. “It was a proactive decision made by the President’s Advisory Committee On Diversity.” Rankin said she was unable to release the results of the survey, that only ISU President Gregory Geoffroy and the diversity committee could do so.

“We’re trying to be as open as possible,” Rankin said.

Espinoza said the university will not release the results until after the constituencies that worked with Rankin on the survey have a chance to review it. Espinoza said she expects the final report to be released in November.

Rankin worked with a number of groups on campus including women, students with physical disabilities, the LGBT community, communities of color, students of color and randomly sampled white students and white employees.

“I tried to meet with all groups on campus that could have influenced [the survey],” Rankin said. She will return in October as part of an agreement with the constituency groups to hold a meeting with them and to get their input and comments.

Rankin was contracted in spring 2003 to survey ISU students and faculty and staff members about the diversity climate on campus. The multi-step process takes nearly two years to complete.

First, Rankin said, she did research on the diversity climate in Iowa and also collected data from the Parks Library about Iowa State. During this step, Rankin worked with constituent groups on campus to help develop questions for the survey.

The 64-question, multiple choice survey asked: “Overall, how comfortable are you with the climate at ISU?” and “Have you observed or personally been made aware of any conduct that you feel has created an offensive, hostile or intimidating working or learning environment directed toward a person or group of people at Iowa State University?”

Rankin said although the survey is multiple choice, there is space for qualitative comments.

“This gives voice to the data,” Rankin said. “In this kind of project it is good to look at the voice.”

Then Rankin analyzed the data and drafted a report. She said after a few editing steps and giving the preliminary report to the university, she will reconvene with the same constituency groups to discuss the report.

The last phase, she said, is to review the plan and present it to the constituents. According to Daily staff reports, the survey deadline was extended in February because of a lack of responses.

The survey was pushed back because there were not enough responses and because two staff members involved in the committee left over the summer.

“Part of it was people weren’t informed [of the survey],” Espinoza said. She said Todd Herriott, the former adviser for the Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Transgender and Ally Alliance at Iowa State, was instrumental in building trust between the surveyors and constituent groups.

“Once people felt comfortable, they were willing to be forthcoming,” Espinoza said.

When the survey was completed, Espinoza said about 1,930 responses were received.

The President’s Advisory Council on Diversity includes four subcommittees to deal with student retention, community relations, the campus climate and outreach.

“We found out a lot of the issues coming out of these subcommittees could be addressed by doing a campus climate survey,” Espinoza said.

Rankin said she has done similar surveys with nearly 50 other universities. Even if the university follows an established plan to improve the campus climate, change will not happen overnight.

“The culture and the climate will not change in two years,” Rankin said. “But in the 27 years I’ve been in higher education, I’ve seen tremendous change.”

Rankin did a national campus climate survey using 15 universities. She said the national results indicate 20 to 25 percent of under-served populations feel some conduct on campus limits their ability to learn or work in the environment.

— Jeff Christian contributed to this article.