Climate survey results

​As the excitement of a new academic year grows around us, I want to thank you for the opportunity to join our community. The conversations of hope and renewal I continue to hear as I listen to our faculty, staff, and students inspire me. We have many challenges in front of us — both internal and external — and I feel there is a new energy amongst us to address them all.

At last week’s Joint Council retreat, we began our work to understand and recognize the trauma we all have experienced these past few years. We took the first steps to design the scaffolding that will support our collective work moving forward. As we approach the end of my first 125 days in office, and I engage in more conversations with our university community, I will share more comprehensive thoughts about our future path.

To begin our journey, we must acknowledge how the past few years have affected our quality of life. The 2022 climate survey results show declining trust in our leadership, concern about our path forward, a yearning for a more networked community, and a desire to define a new standard of work-life balance. Where we are currently is one moment in time. The trends are real, and our actions and priorities must be aligned so that we do not see our current reality as our permanent one.

As part of Joint Council’s discussion, we considered immediate actions steps we can take as a community to address the survey feedback. As such, I invite all faculty and staff to view the results here:

• Faculty Perceptions of Campus Climate
• Staff Perceptions of Campus Climate

The results show positive trends too. There is growing recognition our faculty and academic leaders have supported our community well over the past years. There is also a bright light of hope. It is clear the entire community is yearning for inclusion in the creation of our path forward. I see how much you care about DePaul and our university community. Your commitment to our Catholic, Vincentian mission and delivering an exceptional education to our students is evident.

I have charged all of our university leaders to engage in discussions with you about the climate survey results. I encourage you to ask: what must we change in the short term? What do we aspire to become? How do we address the new challenges of our society? What actions must we take to engage our community? And how can we use our mission to reconnect our community through our work? The answers to these questions will form the beginning of our future strategic planning at DePaul.