Announcing the Belonging & Culture Survey, BU’s first-ever campus-wide culture assessment

The following is a message from University President Robert A. Brown and University Provost & Chief Academic Officer Jean Morrison to all BU students, faculty, and staff, sent on Thursday, September 15, 2022. 

Dear Boston University Community Members:

At Boston University, we seek to create an environment characterized by openness, fairness, and equal access for all students, staff, and faculty. A welcoming and inclusive campus culture and climate is foundational to our educational goals and grounded in mutual respect, nurtured by dialogue, and validated by civil interaction. Creating and maintaining a community environment in which all individuals have the opportunity to achieve their potential and goals is critically important.

We write to share with you that during the fall 2022 and spring 2023 semesters, the University will undertake a comprehensive culture/climate assessment, the Belonging & Culture Survey. As we continue to fulfill our commitments to two of the 2030 Strategic Plan pillars—“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” and “Community, Big Yet Small”—the forthcoming campus-wide survey will allow us to assess the sense of belonging and culture at the University for students, staff, and faculty and to identify successes and opportunities for improvement. Survey data will better enable us to develop programs and policies that will increase a sense of belonging for all at BU.

We recognize that we have surveyed students, staff, and faculty in a number of different ways over the years. Each of those surveys has provided us with meaningful, actionable feedback that we continue to apply. The Belonging & Culture Survey we are announcing today, BU’s first-ever campus-wide survey and the start of an ongoing process to be repeated every three years, is an opportunity for you to make a difference in the University’s future.

To assist with this work and help achieve a fully confidential and transparent process, we have partnered with a nationally respected educational consulting firm, Rankin Climate. Rankin has conducted more than 250 culture/climate assessment projects in higher education over the last 22 years. A team from Rankin will collaborate with a working group of BU students, staff, and faculty from across our campuses to populate focus groups, build the survey, encourage participation in the survey, and ultimately share the survey results with the broader community. The membership of the working group is listed here.

A Belonging & Culture Survey website is being developed to communicate about the assessment process and results. We will forward information on this website and additional details about the project as they become available. In the meantime, please feel free to reach out to belong@bu.edu with any questions.

We thank you in advance for your participation in this important initiative and for your ongoing assistance in helping ensure a safe, inclusive, and productive environment for all members of the BU community.

Sincerely,

Robert A. Brown, President

Jean Morrison, University Provost & Chief Academic Officer