As the new school year begins, students and USC administrators are reflecting on previous semesters — via the results of the Culture Survey released on July 10 — to look for areas of improvement. The survey was available for students to take between Jan. 22 and Feb. 16, and 24% of USC’s undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and staff shared their thoughts. A lot, however, has happened since. 

The Survey

The USC Culture Survey Report of Findings stated participants submitted 15,184 usable responses. Of these respondents, 18% were undergraduate students, 28% were graduate students, 15% were faculty and 39% were staff. 

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The University hired the Ethics & Compliance Initiative, an independent agency known for assisting other universities such as the University of Colorado Colorado Springs and the University of Arkansas with similar surveys, to help create the survey and analyze the results. 

In a joint interview with the Daily Trojan and Annenberg Media, USC’s Vice President of Culture, Ethics and Compliance Stacy Giwa said a response could be rendered unusable if a student worker filled out both a student and staff survey. In this case, she said, ECI discarded the staff survey and used the student form. 

Giwa also told the Daily Trojan an incomplete survey would be considered an unusable response, and ECI received 1,618 unusable responses. 

Key Findings

The Culture Survey asked respondents questions about six “Unifying Values” at USC — Integrity; Accountability; Excellence’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Well-being; and Open Communication — which were chosen through a community survey in 2019.

In addition to questions about each value, the survey asked respondents if they saw each Unifying Value in action at USC. “Excellence” scored the highest, with 83% of respondents indicating they did see the value in action, whereas “Accountability” scored the lowest with just 59%. 

Throughout the survey, faculty were the most cynical. When all respondents were asked if they saw each Unifying Value in action at USC, faculty agreed on average 13 percentage points lower than the University Overall. 

Notably, 23.3% of faculty members who filled out the survey were tenured or on the tenure track. Those faculty reported they saw a given Unifying Value in action at an average rate of 10 percentage points lower than those who did not have or were not on track for tenure. 

For two Unifying Values, Accountability and Open Communication, more tenured and tenure track faculty explicitly disagreed they saw the value in action than those who agreed. Forty-one percent of this group said they did not see Accountability in action compared to 36% who said they did, and 42% said they did not see open communication in action compared to 37% who said they did. This subgroup was the only one to disagree more than agree with any of the Unifying Value in action prompts.

In contrast, graduate students tended to agree the most with the prompts. Kevin Chang, a graduate student studying chemistry, said this surprised him. Given his experience in the Graduate Student Workers Organizing Committee and conversations with peers, he had thought the survey results — especially from fellow graduates — would be a lot less favorable. 

Another significant finding demonstrated that all stakeholder groups seemed to respond less  favorably to questions involving University Leadership than to questions involving any other category. It is important to note, however, that only staff and faculty were asked to evaluate Local Leadership and only students were asked to evaluate Faculty/Instructors.

Among groups found across all surveys, respondents tended to have the most confidence in their peers when it came to being held accountable or accepting responsibility. The “My Peers” group led University Leadership and School/Unit Leadership by 9.08 percentage points on average in these questions.

In some of the questions within the section on excellence, a rift emerged between students, staff and faculty. Only 52% of faculty members and 63% of staff agreed their work is recognized appropriately, compared to 76% and 78% of undergraduate and graduate students, respectively. 

While all stakeholder groups generally agreed the University “provides resources for mental health and well-being support,” the rest of the prompts in the Well-Being section featured more breaks between the faculty/staff and student groups. 

When respondents were asked if they are “able to access university resources that support [their] growth and development,” only 63% and 72% of faculty and staff said yes, compared to 83% of both graduate and undergraduate students. Similarly, only 62% and 65% of faculty and staff agreed they were encouraged to pursue their goals at USC, whereas 87% and 88% of graduates and undergraduates agreed with the prompt.  

Though 63% of the University Overall agreed they saw Open Communication in action at USC, the responses by stakeholder groups continue to paint a picture of faculty dissent. Only 47% of the faculty group agreed they saw the value in action, compared to 59% of staff, 74% of graduate students and 71% of undergraduates. 

Only 55% of the University Overall said they could “raise concerns without fear of retaliation.” Sixty-seven percent of graduate students and 58% of undergraduate students agreed with the statement, but just 51% of staff and 40% of faculty said they agreed. Thirty-six percent of faculty explicitly disagreed with the prompt. 

Despite any previous cynicism, all stakeholder groups overwhelmingly agreed with the statement “I am proud to be a member of USC.”

Students reflect and react

Clay Shaughnessy, a freshman majoring in physics, said the survey results reassured him he had made the right decision in coming to USC this fall, seeing that his fellow students generally had confidence in the University. 

“Going into this space of mystery and not knowing anything,” he said, “to know that the people that were in my shoes a year ago did find that it was a general positive experience was very comforting.”

Despite this, Shaughnessy said he was disappointed — but not entirely surprised — that faculty were less favorable to the University. He said since he knows some professors personally — at USC and elsewhere — he was aware that faculty are often dissatisfied with the way they are treated. 

On the other hand, Chang said if he had been able to retake the survey closer to the end of the year his responses would be much more negative towards the University. Specifically, he would give the University a lower rating on Accountability citing recent controversies.

Chang also said he had issues with some of the ways the survey was conducted and advertised. Initially, the email officially inviting students to take the Culture Survey did not look like an official email from the University, which he said may have thrown off potential respondents. 

“If you look at the email that I got, there’s no official lining that USC does in terms of those red banners,” Chang said. “It honestly looks like a spam email … there’s no images, there’s no headings, it’s just plain text.”

As the survey was being distributed, Chang said the use of an In-N-Out truck to incentivize students may have skewed the results, as he heard students in line scramble to fill out their forms in order to get the food without knowing what the survey was really for. In the future, Chang said USC could ask professors to give class time to fill out the survey.

The University looks forward

Events like the cancellation of Valedictorian Asna Tabassum’s commencement speech, and USC’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment elicited backlash from members of the University community and beyond, since the Culture Survey closed in February. Given the possibility stakeholders could change their opinions on the University — because of these events or otherwise — Giwa said she and her colleagues would not take these results as the final say on respondents’ opinions. 

“We never want to only rely on the survey results, as valuable and insightful [they are] and as appreciative as we are for the people who took the survey,” she said. “The University believes, and I believe, you have to get out and have the report outs and the discussion sessions [as well].”

The University hosted its first “Report-Back” session, where officials gave a virtual presentation on the survey findings and held time for a Q&A period, on July 25. USC then hosted two virtual discussion sessions on Aug. 6 and 13, where participants discussed in breakout groups of up to ten people about their thoughts on the survey. The discussion sessions are not recorded for privacy reasons, the University wrote in an email.

The University plans to host more Report-Back discussions and discussion sessions during the Fall 2024 semester. Each Report-Back session will be followed by two discussion sessions. Registration is currently open for some Report Back sessions online. 

Michael Burroughs, USC’s Executive Director of Organizational Change, Ethics, and Culture, said in an interview with the Daily Trojan, the sessions have been going very well so far. Participants are turning out in high numbers — over 100 across both discussion sessions and over 300 in the first report-back — and giving diverse feedback. He also said 94% of participants who answered a post-zoom survey gave the session a rating of “excellent” or “good.” 

Giwa said after all of the University-wide sessions have been completed she and her coworkers will compile a report of feedback given by participants — while still retaining anonymity — and share broad themes with the University community. 

Beyond the University-wide sessions, USC will collaborate with individual schools and units to hold report-backs and discussion sessions focused on the specific entities. These sessions will only be open to stakeholders within the school or unit in question. 

Regardless of whether someone filled out the survey, Giwa said it’s important for community members to continuously share their feedback in any way they can. 

“There’s a reason we call it a culture journey,” she said. “We don’t want to ever think that there’s a place where we should stop talking.”