Update – BC Government Survey
Between January and March 2022, the BC Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training launched a sexualized violence student perception survey including all BC post-secondary institutions. The purpose of the survey was to try and assess and understand student perceptions of sexualized violence at their institution to gain a provincial picture of the successes and challenges in our province.
About 4% of students responded. Institutions were provided the option of purchasing their institution-specific data and sharing this information with their students. UVic believed it was important to obtain and share the data to be transparent, and to look at ways to improve our prevention and response efforts.
At UVic, a weighted total of 950 undergraduate and graduate students of our 21,000 student population provided their perceoptions, which was similar to the provincial response rate.
What did UVic learn?
Below is a summary of the key learnings.
Trust in the institution
Strong trust in UVic’s commitment to:
- Maintain privacy
- Take sexualized violence seriously
- Provide support and resources to impacted parties
Expressed concern about UVic to:
- Maintain safe processes
- Enact appropriate discipline
Campus culture - safety & perceived risk
The majority of survey participants:
- Feel safe from sexualized violence at UVic
At the same time:
- Students who participated perceive online and in-person forms of sexualized violence to be ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ common
- Some students feel less safe on campus than others (cis-men perceived safety > cis-women and 2sLGBTQI+ students)
Education & training
Positive feedback on UVic’s efforts include:
- UVic does a good job communicating about resources and supports
- Education provided is robust and generally effective
Room for improvement include:
- More needs to be done that to ensure students understand basic concepts such as the distinction between a disclosure and report
What is UVic planning?
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Improved back to school messaging through social media campaign, brochures, and workshops
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Positioning our Sexualized Violence disclosure and reporting data in a more accessible location (presently in EQHR annual report – moving to the www.uvic.ca/svp main page)
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Completing and launching our Engaging Men education program aimed at sustained shift in attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours
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Consultation with students on how to improve formal reporting processes and make more accessible our current process ‘fact sheets’
For more information
Leger, the consulting firm which conducted the sexualized violence student perception survey, provided two PowerPoint summaries with the survey data placed in the provincial context: