PhD Program Climate Survey

This is an anonymous climate and feedback survey for doctoral students in a School of Social Work, but it could be used or adapted for other disciplines, as well.  Students from my school's doctoral program helped develop the questions. This tool does not ask about any  information that could identify a student, such as demographic info or matriculation year, in part because our program is so small that this would end up identifying certain students.  In the intro email that was sent to students, I let them know that this survey represents an initial pass at trying to learn about the various program strengths, gaps, and areas in need of improvement, from the perspectives of students.  We followed the survey with several group discussions with students, one facilitated by faculty on the PhD program committee, and two facilitated by an external person in a leadership role from our university's Multicultural Student Center (who then prepared a report for us with themes raised by the students). 

Importantly, the work doesn't stop there. The next phase is developing a plan for implementing changes that can realistically be made (some changes are less in the control of the School and PhD program, for example some things require university-level change or are dictated by professional governing organizations).