Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are central to our mission at Illinois Tech. We can best serve our students, faculty, staff, and community when we work together to build a culture where we engage in continuous conversation, learning, and skill-building around DEI.

Earlier in the year, I promised to issue the first universitywide cultural climate survey for all students, which I am pleased to announce will be rolling out in the coming days. The survey, developed in concert with our third-party consulting firm, Nova Collective, is designed to help us identify our current strengths and areas of opportunity with respect to DEI. Our institutional research center will administer the survey, and Nova Collective will analyze the data. Findings from this survey will help inform our university’s DEI strategy going forward and will help us to determine the next steps in our journey. As a follow-up to the survey, Nova will convene a series of focus groups to explore themes identified in the survey and to help us get a better sense of how we can create a more equitable and inclusive campus.

This survey is anonymous, and no personally identifying information will be collected or reported. Responses will be reported in aggregate, and responses from groups with fewer than 15 people will never be reported to the university. As an example, you may be asked some questions about yourself, such as your major. If fewer than 15 people with your same major respond to this survey, we won’t report responses broken out by your major.

You will receive a separate email from the Center for Research and Service with the survey link. Please look for it and complete the survey as soon as possible.

Thank you for your input, and we look forward to working with you to make this vital change a reality.

Sincerely,

Alan W. Cramb
President, Illinois Institute of Technology