In the Nov. 8 issue of the Daily Illini, the University-wide Climate Survey was reviewed as “missing the mark” as a “useful tool for researchers.” While the editorial board raised some good points — concepts the team struggled with during the design process — we are confident that the survey methodology will give the University the data it needs.

The survey is intended as a baseline assessment to gauge current perceptions of climate across the campuses.

While the questions may appear basic, when answers are compared between various demographics, they will provide us with valuable information.

The questions are necessarily broad to avoid leading the people completing the survey. Terms were carefully selected to balance meaningfulness across groups with differing ranges of vocabulary, familiarity with the University, and so on.

The editorial implied that the survey offers no place to capture a respondent’s individual experiences, when in fact there are three opportunities to submit open-ended responses in addition to questions from which respondents choose from a closed-end set of possible responses.

The survey will give the University data that can help us determine the actions needed to improve the climate on our campuses.

The data obtained in this survey also can be compared to data gathered in future surveys to gauge our progress in improving our climate.

For more information, please see: “http://www.uillinois.edu/climatesurvey/”:http://www.uillinois.edu/climatesurvey/.

_Christophe Pierre, vice president for Academic Affairs_