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• The Sexual Assault and Related Harms Survey is a campuswide initiative to gather information from undergraduate and graduate students about incidents of sexual assault, harassment and exploitation, stalking, and dating and domestic violence that have occurred on or off campus during a student’s time at CU Boulder.
• The survey also asks participants whether they told a friend or family member, if they reported any incidents to police or the campus Title IX office, and whether students accessed confidential support resources.
• In addition, the survey asks students about negative consequences they may have experienced if they indicate having been sexually assaulted.
• The survey also asks about social factors such as sense of belonging and mattering, finding study peers, making friends and finding mentors to better determine the role that community plays in preventing sexual violence and buffering students from negative consequences when harm does occur.

• The survey’s purpose is to gather reliable data that will help CU Boulder understand the prevalence of sexual assault and related harms, including how these experiences may differ based on aspects of a student’s identity, and how those differences may lead to different outcomes.
• This information will help guide campus prevention efforts and measure the impact of those efforts.

All undergraduate and graduate students are invited to take the survey. There are small differences between the undergraduate and graduate versions to address the unique contexts and experiences of the two groups.

• The campus is administering this survey to update CU Boulder’s understanding of the prevalence of sexual assault, harassment and exploitation, intimate partner abuse, and stalking happening to undergraduate and graduate students and to compare the results to findings from similar surveys administered in 2015 and 2021.
• Tracking these issues over time can help the campus roll out new prevention initiatives and student services.
• Through the survey, the campus will analyze whether social factors such as making a new close friend and ease of finding study peers are protective against sexual assault and its consequences.
• The survey will also enable the campus to assess whether feelings of belonging and mattering can help buffer students from the negative impact of these harms on academic progress and mental health and well-being.

• The campus will use the survey results to refine existing prevention efforts and to expand student programs and services.
• The survey results will also provide the campus with information that can lead to better academic and social strategies to help reduce risk and associated harms
• The campus will compare this year’s survey results to findings from 2021 and 2015 surveys.
• A significant goal will be to look for changes from past years to better understand prevalence rates over time, especially how the COVID 19 pandemic may have led to reduced rates of sexual assault and whether those effects continue.

• Beyond assessing prevalence, data from the 2021 and 2015 surveys have been used to understand the impact of sexual violence, to inform enhancements in prevention strategies, education, reporting systems, and support services with the overarching goal of enhancing campus culture.
• Find out more about the initiatives and prevention efforts that have been implemented in response to the past survey findings.

• Qualtrics, the software the campus uses to administer the survey, automatically encrypts survey responses and deletes participants' email addresses and location the instant they submit their survey responses.
• In addition, the anonymous survey results are stored on a secure encrypted server hosted by OIEC.

• Survey administrators will aggregate data in groups with 10 or more responses to maintain the anonymity of survey participants.
• Should any demographic group or combination of group characteristics have fewer than 10 individuals, those results will not be reported.
• Participant anonymity is the campus’s first duty of care and will be protected in all reports resulting from this survey.
• CU Boulder is committed to ensuring that individuals can provide candid responses with confidence. Anything else is counterproductive to this effort.

• No one will have access to private student data.
• As a feature of the survey software, when survey participants have submitted their responses, their email address, location data and IP address are instantly erased.
• Once the survey closes, campus staff trained to assess survey data will download deidentified datasets –– those stripped of private information such as email addresses, locations and IP addresses –– and organize and prepare them for analysis. Only the OIEC survey assessment team will have access to the deidentified datasets, and these data files would never be made available to any other CU employee or non-CU entity.

• Qualtrics, the survey software, immediately encrypts survey data once a participant has submitted their responses, removing identifying details such as email addresses, locations and IP addresses.
• In fact, survey responses are encrypted throughout the survey process, including when they are in the cloud, while they are “in transit” across campus servers, and while they are “at rest” on a secure server hosted by OIEC.

The campus will continue to administer the survey every four years to examine evidence of progress toward meeting the institutional goal of preventing and responding to sexual assault and related harms.

The survey administered by the CU Boulder Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance or OIEC will be open to all undergraduate and graduate students the week of Oct. 22 and close on Dec 1.

• Previous administrations of student surveys at CU Boulder have seen high response rates prompted largely by outreach to students to ensure that:
  • Students understand the survey’s purpose
  • Participants are guaranteed anonymity
  • The data will be used to address problems and create accountability
• The campus also shares survey goals with babyֱ��app and staff and asks them to encourage students –– for instance, by letting class out 15 minutes early or, if time and space allow, in the babyֱ��app –– to take part in the survey.
• Students who complete the survey will receive a $10 Buff OneCard deposit or can donate the funds to the CU Boulder Basic Needs Center or the Graduate Student Emergency Aid Fund.​

Survey administrators anticipate sharing key preliminary survey findings with the CU Boulder community before spring break in March 2025.

Campus administrators anticipate sharing full survey results in April 2025.