Climate survey results 2022
The 2022 Geoscience Community Climate Survey was conducted in February and March 2023 in order to receive feedback on our community climate for calendar year 2022. The survey consisted of both multiple choice and free response questions. Below we summarize the free response comments and provide detailed data on responses to the multiple choice questions.
Summary of comments
There was a wide range of individual, write-in comments given as part of our geoscience climate survey. Below, we have tried to summarize a portion of the comments to provide recognition of these ideas and feedback and so that we can work to address areas that need improvement.
Comments related to whether our community climate has improved or worsened over the past calendar year
Comments on this question centered on the theme of community building, but expressed this in different ways. Many survey respondents praised the new and ongoing community building efforts that exist, but other respondents pointed out that we still have a large need for improvement. There were multiple suggestions and requests for increased community building. Comments included:
- Some individuals expressed a general sense that groups (e.g., faculty, students, staff, units such as DGSE and the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, etc) are becoming increasingly separate with diminishing interaction between groups. There were also calls for increased interaction with other departments at all levels (with student clubs being cited as an example of a good way for students to interact between departments). One suggestion to increase interaction among all groups was to start a post-seminar social hour.
- Requests for more opportunities for undergraduates to interact with other members of geoscience community (e.g., graduate students, faculty, etc) through inclusion in social activities (e.g., the DGSE picnic), additional encouragement to attend colloquia, and encouragement to participate in other extracurricular activities. There was concern that existing opportunities for interaction are not well advertised, and a suggestion to improve this was to create a curated list of activities. There was also a suggestion that the Arentz Center is underutilized for reaching out to and promoting interaction between undergraduate students.
- Many of the graduate student community building activities (e.g., the Bagel and Coffee hours organized by SAGE (the graduate student club)) were praised with the implication that these efforts should continue. However, there was concern about the ability to sustain these efforts as students graduate and/or reduce volunteer hours to focus on academics.
- There were a few requests/observations aimed specifically at geoscience faculty. This included concern that limited resources and academic pressures are leading towards more competition and less community building between faculty. Suggestion to partially alleviate this was for the three geoscience units (DGSE, NBMG, and NSL) to engage in more discussion to plan future hires, research facilities and other resources and also for faculty to more regularly come to campus and make efforts to interact socially (e.g., through going to geoscience events, meeting or dining with visiting colloquia speakers, etc).
- There was concern that difference in graduates student salaries is creating inequities (at both the graduate student and faculty levels), with a request to form a committee to evaluate reasonable graduate student salaries rates which could suggest some standards and work to reduce the pay discrepancy between graduate students.
- In various ways, multiple respondents expressed concern about losses of faculty and students from our programs, with particular concern expressed about the Geological Engineering major.
- In relation to individuals feeling valued, there were comments that increased recognition of (and placing value on) experiences outside of academia (both professional and personal) could improve our community climate.
Comments related to negative experiences within the past calendar year
There were multiple comments related to negative experiences respondents had had in our geoscience community. The negative experiences individuals described included gender bias against women, acts of sexual harassment, issues related to student-advisor relationships, feeling pressure to support the mining industry, a lack of good advising for students, and a general sense of feeling unwelcome. Respondents also expressed a sense of frustration and disappointment that, when these events were reported, they were not handled sufficiently.
One tactic suggested to reduce the occurrence of negative experiences was to make and enforce a code of conduct for field work, with the inclusion of post-trip surveys of participants to ensure the code of conduct was followed.
Additional comments
Additional comments that did not fit into the above categories included concern about class availability/time conflicts and poor advising increasing the time needed for students to earn degrees. There were also suggestions to improve the handling of data and comments from this survey in future years (such as appointing a committee to read and act upon the individual comments).
Tabulated responses of individual questions
Below are tabulated results from individual questions from our community climate survey. We are presenting all data in both graphical and text format to increase accessibility. In the tabulated text data, all numbers refer to number of individuals (not percentages). Note that when sorting responses by affiliation, we only included affiliations with 8 or more respondents in order to ensure anonymity.
Faculty: 21
Graduate students: 18
Undergraduates: 11
Community members: 4
Staff: 2
Alumni: 2
Total respondents: 59
For reference, we have ~50 graduate faculty members combined in the Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering (DGSE), Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology (NBMG) the Nevada Seismo Lab (NSL) and the Desert Research Institute (DRI). We have ~35 DGSE graduate students, with an additional 7 graduate students in the Graduate Program in Hydrologic Sciences (GPHS) who are advised by DGSE faculty. We have ~100 undergraduate students. NBMG and NSL also employ several non-academic staff.
No: 40
Yes: 16
Prefer not to answer: 3
Responses to Question 1 sorted by affiliation
No: 19 faculty, 9 graduate students, 5 undergraduate students
Yes: 1 faculty, 9 graduate students, 5 undergraduate students
Responses to Question 1 sorted by identification as a first-generation student
No: 8 first-generation, 32 non-first generation students
Yes: 5 first-generation, 11 non-first generation students
Responses to Question 1 sorted by sense of being valued within our community
No: 3 ‘I don’t know’, 5 ‘not at all or not so much’, 32 ‘somewhat or very much’
Yes: 1 ‘I don’t know’, 1 ‘not at all or not so much’, 14 ‘somewhat or very much’
Responses to Question 1 sorted by feeling of improvement/worsening of University Geoscience community in the last year
No: 3 ‘worsened or somewhat worsened’, 14 ‘neither worsened nor improved’, 19 ‘somewhat improved or improved’
Yes: 2 ‘worsened or somewhat worsened’, 4 ‘neither worsened nor improved’, 8 ‘somewhat improved or improved’
Responses to Question 1 sorted by presence/absence of a negative experience related to our community climate
No: 5 with a negative experience, 34 without a negative experience
Yes: 2 with a negative experience, 11 without a negative experience
Responses to Question 1 sorted by awareness of efforts to improve our community climate
No: 6 unaware of efforts, 32 aware of efforts
Yes: 1 unaware of efforts, 14 aware of efforts
No: 44
Yes: 13
Prefer not to answer: 0
Responses to Question 2 sorted by affiliation
No: 20 faculty, 11 graduate students, 7 undergraduate students
Yes: 1 faculty, 7 graduate students, 3 undergraduate students
Responses to Question 2 sorted by sense of being valued within our community
No: 4 ‘I don’t know’, 4 ‘not at all or not so much’, 36 ‘somewhat or very much’
Yes: 0 ‘I don’t know’, 2 ‘not at all or not so much’, 11 ‘somewhat or very much’
Responses to Question 2 sorted by feeling of improvement/worsening of University Geoscience community in the last year
No: 5 ‘worsened or somewhat worsened’, 15 ‘neither worsened nor improved’, 18 ‘somewhat improved or improved’
Yes: 0 ‘worsened or somewhat worsened’, 4 ‘neither worsened nor improved’, 9 ‘somewhat improved or improved’
Responses to Question 2 sorted by presence/absence of a negative experience related to our community climate
No: 5 with a negative experience, 35 without a negative experience
Yes: 2 with a negative experience, 11 without a negative experience
Responses to Question 2 sorted by awareness of efforts to improve our community climate
No: 5 unaware of efforts, 37 aware of efforts
Yes: 3 unaware of efforts, 9 aware of efforts
I don't know: 4
No, not at all: 1
No, not so much: 5
Yes, somewhat: 26
Yes, very much: 23
Responses to Question 3 sorted by affiliation
I don’t know: 2 faculty, 1 graduate student, 0 undergraduate students
No, not at all / not so much: 3 faculty, 3 graduate students, 0 undergraduate student)
Yes, somewhat / very much: 16 faculty, 14 graduate students, 11 undergraduate students
Responses to Question 3 sorted by feeling of improvement/worsening of University Geoscience community in the last year
I don’t know: 0 ‘worsened or somewhat worsened’, 1 ‘neither worsened nor improved’, 1 ‘somewhat improved or improved’
No, not at all / not so much: 2 ‘worsened or somewhat worsened’, 0 ‘neither worsened nor improved’, 3 ‘somewhat improved or improved’
Yes, somewhat / very much: 4 ‘worsened or somewhat worsened’, 18 ‘neither worsened nor improved’, 23 ‘somewhat improved or improved’
Responses to Question 3 sorted by presence/absence of a negative experience related to our community climate
I don’t know: 0 with a negative experience, 3 without a negative experience
No, not at all and No, not so much: 4 with a negative experience, 1 without a negative experience
Yes, somewhat and Yes, very much: 3 with a negative experience, 44 without a negative experience
Responses to Question 3 sorted by awareness of efforts to improve our community climate
I don’t know: 0 unaware of efforts, 3 aware of efforts
No, not at all and No, not so much: 0 unaware of efforts, 6 aware of efforts
Yes, somewhat and Yes, very much: 8 unaware of efforts, 39 aware of efforts
Worsened: 1
Somewhat worsened: 5
Neither improved nor worsened: 20
Improved somewhat: 15
Improved: 12
Prefer not to answer: 4
Responses to Question 4 sorted by affiliation
Worsened/Somewhat worsened: 3 faculty, 2 graduate student, 1 undergraduate students
Neither improved nor worsened: 7 faculty, 8 graduate students, 1 undergraduate students
Improved somewhat or improved: 10 faculty, 6 graduate students, 8 undergraduate students
Responses to Question 4 sorted by presence/absence of a negative experience related to our community climate
Worsened/Somewhat worsened: 2 with a negative experience, 4 without a negative experience
Neither improved nor worsened: 2 with a negative experience, 17 without a negative experience
Improved somewhat or improved: 3 with a negative experience, 22 without a negative experience
Responses to Question 4 sorted by awareness of efforts to improve our community climate
Worsened/Somewhat worsened: 1 unaware of efforts, 4 aware of efforts
Neither improved nor worsened: 6 unaware of efforts, 13 aware of efforts
Improved somewhat or improved: 1 unaware of efforts, 25 aware of efforts
No: 48
Yes: 7
I'm not sure: 3
Prefer not to answer: 1
Responses to Question 5 sorted by awareness of efforts to improve our community climate
Have had a negative experience: 1 unaware of efforts, 6 aware of efforts
Have not had a negative experience: 7 unaware of efforts, 38 aware of efforts
*Sub question: If you have had a negative experience, and you feel comfortable, please share with us if your negative experience(s) was(were) related to any of the below options:
Gender / gender identity: 4
Age: 3
Religion: 1
Other: 4
No: 8
Yes: 48
Prefer not to answer: 3