Overview: 2015 Campus Attitudes on Sexual Assault

PRESS RELEASE:

The Collegian received 1,041 University of Richmond undergraduate student responses– 34 percent of the student body – to its Spring 2015 Campus Attitudes on Sexual Assault survey. 621 of the started surveys were completed, and the response rates to individual questions varied significantly. The following represents the most pertinent results corresponding to questions asked in the survey. The full report can be read here. For press inquiries, please contact Clayton Helms at (203) 644-9976 or clay.helms@richmond.edu.

Response Rate             

   Invited  

    Responding

    % Responding 

Undergraduate Female

1563

649

42%

Undergraduate Male

1420

355

25%

Total

2983

1004

34%

Data in this analysis are generally provided by gender (male, female). Data for students who identified as transgender or other genders are not provided in order to protect the privacy of the small sample size.

Experiences

Participants were asked about their experiences with unwanted sexual behaviors. These questions included commonly used terms, and did not define these terms (except for “sexual harassment” which included a hover text explanation). Respondents were allowed to interpret the other terms individually. Overall, 14.9% of respondents indicated being sexually harassed, 9.4% being sexually assaulted, and 4.6% being raped.

Respondents indicating that they had experienced each of the following while at the University of Richmond:

Female

Male

%

N

%

N

Been stalked, followed, or received repeated unwanted messages, texts, emails, etc. from someone that made him or her uncomfortable

15.2%

78

5.3%

13

Been in a relationship that was controlling or abusive (physically, sexually, psychologically, emotionally, or financially)

6.5%

33

4.3%

11

Been sexually harassed (Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal conduct of a sexual nature…or if conduct creates a hostile environment)

18.6%

94

6.6%

16

Been sexually assaulted

12.6%

64

2.5%

6

Been raped

5.9%

30

1.7%

4

More than half the females that responded answered that they have experienced some sort of unwanted sexual behaviors while at the university of Richmond. Close to 7 in 10 (69%) of respondents who indicated they had an unwanted sexual experience at the University of Richmond told someone else about the incident(s), but fewer than 4% reported the experience(s) to someone in an official capacity.

The University of Richmond student government associations will host a town hall forum to feature the updated version of the sexual conduct policy on Wednesday, March 25, from 7-8 p.m. in the Gottwald Auditorium that anyone can attend. Additionally the US Department of Education will be on campus to host student-only focus groups to discuss sexual and gender harassment, sexual violence, and sexual misconduct Tuesday, March 31.

Methodology:

The Collegian based its survey off of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s 2014 Community Attitudes on Sexual Assault survey. The Collegian received permission from MIT’s Institutional Research Office of the Provost to use MIT’s survey as a model. The wording in the questions has only been changed to localize the survey to Richmond (ex. replace MIT with Richmond).

After staff members built and tested the survey, we used a printed version of the University of Richmond’s student directory to manually generate a list of every undergraduate student attending the University of Richmond.

Once the staff compiled a list of all undergraduate students, we emailed a link to students and allowed survey responses to populate for one week. Our original email sent to students can be read below: