52 Percent of Students Complete Sexual Conduct Climate Survey

Fifty-two percent of eligible Harvard students completed the University’s sexual conduct climate survey, according to survey information from the website of Harvard’s task force on the prevention of sexual assault.

The survey, which launched on April 12 and closed on May 3, is a Harvard-specific version of an Association of American Universities poll being conducted at 28 schools across the country to gather data on sexual conduct. A week and a half after the release of the survey, 37 percent of students had completed it.

The release of the survey was accompanied by a large publicity push: Many of Harvard’s top administrators, including University President Drew G. Faust and Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana, sent students emails asking them to take the survey, and posters around campus advertised it. That effort was not without some hiccups, as some students conflated the climate survey with Divest Harvard’s “Heat Week” demonstrations and may have not responded because of its terminology.

Still, David I. Laibson ’88, an Economics professor and a member of Harvard’s sexual assault task force who helped create the national survey, previously suggested that the survey might yield a response rate of 20 to 35 percent. Students who participated in the survey received a $5 Amazon gift card.

“This is a huge success in my mind,” University Title IX Officer Mia Karvonides said of the survey’s response rate.

—Staff writer Andrew M. Duehren can be reached at andy.duehren@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @aduehren.