TFCCP Survey FAQs

I am a current student, staff member, faculty member or alum who should have received a link to the survey, but I can not find the link in my email inbox. What should I do?

Some community members have found the email with the survey link in their spam folder – please check there. Look for an email from “The Task Force on Clinic and Corporate Sponsorships” with the subject line “Survey from The Task Force on Clinic and Corporate Sponsorships” If you still can not find the email with the survey link, please contact Laura Palucki Blake (lpblake@g.hmc.edu) for assistance.

With regards to alumni, the survey was sent to all alumni who have indicated to the Office of Alumni and Parent Relations that it is okay for the College to contact them. If you would like to participate in this survey and have not received an email, please contact Laura Palucki Blake (lpblake@g.hmc.edu) for assistance.

What was the process for developing the survey?

The development of the survey was a collaboration between the Task Force on Clinic and Corporate Partnerships and the Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness (OIRE). A subgroup of the task force took the lead on survey design, with assistance from OIRE and the Task Force co-chairs. The entire task force weighed in on drafts. Edits were made to survey length, and to clarify wording, survey instructions, and question order. The survey was pilot tested with small groups of students, staff, faculty and alumni whose feedback was used to further refine the survey prior to release.

Who will be taking the survey? When?

All current Harvey Mudd students (including incoming first years and transfer students), all current full and part time faculty, faculty, all staff and alumni are invited to participate in the window July 29 through August 19.  When the summary of survey results is published, the number of responses and response rate will be shared.

Is the survey a referendum? When I take the survey, am I voting for a particular course of action to be taken?

No, the survey is not a referendum. The survey was designed to get a snapshot of the current feelings of the HMC community, and will inform discussions in the fall. Many of the issues addressed are complex and will require more in-depth conversation to unpack. The survey is one step in the overall process of developing our collective understanding of the issues.   

What if I do not have enough information or experience to have an opinion about a question on the survey?

You have two options. Many items have “unable to rate” as a response option.  If you feel like you do not have enough experience to answer an item, you can check “unable to rate”.  You can also leave any item on the survey blank, and still continue taking the survey. 

What if I have an opinion about an issue that the survey does not address? What if I want to provide more explanation/context for my other responses on the survey?

The last question of the survey provides space for respondents to write any additional information they want to share.

Will my survey responses be anonymous? Will my survey responses be confidential?

The survey  is confidential. You will be asked to provide some basic demographic information (class year, gender, race) so that we can examine responses along various demographic factors. Your responses will only be analyzed at the group level (e.g. are there differences between men and women) and will only be reported if the group is of sufficient size that respondents’ identities will not be compromised (n = 5).   The alumni version of the survey provides an opportunity for alumni to volunteer to talk with current students about their work; these responses will be detached from the rest of the survey and stored elsewhere to preserve data integrity.. The full set of written comments will only be read by the Task Force and the Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness.  The content of the written comments will be summarized and reported in digested format. If representative quotes are shared as examples of typical responses, they will first have any personally identifiable information in the quote removed.

What will be done with the results of the survey? Will I be able to see the survey results?

The Task Force, with the help of the Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness, will analyze the survey and prepare summary reports. Summary tables, but not the raw data, will be shared with the HMC community. This level of transparency, which preserves confidentiality, constitutes professional and ethical practice for survey administration. Please see the question above about confidentiality for more information.

A summary of the results of the survey will be included in the interim reports released by the Task Force in the fall and will be posted to the Task Force website.  The summary of the survey results will also be shared and discussed during community meetings in the fall and in the final report of the Task Force that will be submitted in January 2025.

Why are there so many questions on the survey about the military?  What about other sectors in which ethical issues need to be discussed (e.g. AI, privacy, health)?

The interpretation and implementation of the mission of Harvey Mudd has been a dynamic process throughout the history of the college.  At this particular moment in time, due in part to the current state of affairs in the world, there has been significant interest in discussing military applications and the appropriate role that Harvey Mudd should play in developing military technology and/or preparing students for a career in this sector. This emotionally charged conversation, in which there is likely a wide range of opinions across the HMC community, is the conversation that we need to have now to address our present context.  It is the hope of the Task Force that the results of this conversation will provide a model for how future conversations about ethical issues could be handled.  In addition, the Task Force hopes to guide the College towards implementing processes that will facilitate broad, on-going, collaborative, consultative discussions of how our Clinic and corporate partnership programs can be best aligned with our mission and values.

Why does the survey ask demographic questions (race, ethnicity, gender)?  Do I have to answer these questions?

The demographic questions enable the survey results to be disaggregated by these characteristics.This extra layer of analysis has been shown to be an important tool in survey research to increase the visibility of the experiences and beliefs of people who may not otherwise be as visible in the fully aggregated data set.

In order to protect the identities of respondents, disaggregated responses will only be shared when there are enough people in the group such that no one can be identified (n = 5). 

All questions on the survey, including the demographic questions, are optional. You can decide not to answer any question for any reason and still participate in the rest of the survey.

Can I change my responses to the survey after I have completed it?

Prior to pressing “submit” on the last page of the survey, you can return to the survey as much as you would like to edit your responses.  Once you press “submit”, no further edits will be possible. After submitting the survey, you will still have other opportunities to share feedback with the Task Force in other forums, including emailing the Task Force at taskforce_ccp-l@g.hmc.edu and participating in the fall discussions.

If I find the wording of a question on the survey confusing, misleading, or otherwise objectionable, what can I do?  

One option is to answer the question the best that you can, take notes on the issue that you are having with the question and then provide more context/explanation on the open-ended question at the end of the survey.  

Another option is to leave the question blank if you do not feel comfortable answering the question as written. You can skip any question in the survey and still complete the rest of the survey. You can, if you wish, add your comments to the open-ended question at the end of the survey.

During the subsequent conversations in the fall, there will be opportunities for community members to discuss the nuances of their responses to the survey and how they interpreted questions on which there was confusion about what was being asked.  

On the second page of the survey, there are a series of questions asking about how HMC should handle “ethical positions on which there is no clear consensus.”  What is meant by this phrase? 

We acknowledge that this wording has caused some confusion among the survey respondents. The term “ethical position” is meant to convey that the issue is connected to our understanding of right and wrong. The term “no clear consensus” is meant to point towards situations in which reasonable people with good faith intentions can differ in their stance as a result of their moral, ethical, religious, and/or philosophical beliefs or experiences. This set of questions is trying to gauge the community’s opinion about how decisions should be made when it is not possible to achieve consensus.

This question naturally invites respondents to ask themselves follow-up questions such as:  Under what circumstances should Harvey Mudd take a position? When should the college not take a position? What factors should be considered? How should this decision get made? Who gets to decide on behalf of the college? How should the decision process change based on the nature of the issue being decided? How does my response change based on my own personal feelings for or against the issue being decided?

For this set of questions, there will be some value in the summary table of statistics, but the greater value will be in the subsequent conversations to unpack these questions and why people responded the way that they did. Think about these questions (and the whole survey for that matter) as the conversation starter, and not the conversation closer.