The Anoka-Ramsey student survey reflects students’ experiences with harassment.
By: MiKenzi Coons
Staff Writer
In response to the vandalism that occurred last semester, a student survey was conducted in February by Anoka-Ramsey faculty member Kirsten Olsen to get students’ opinions on how often they observe or experience harassment in-person and on social media.
On Feb. 28, Olsen held a meeting for students to gauge interest in preventing harassment on our campus. The survey results were utilized during the meeting to talk about the campus climate.
Currently there are large committees creating a strategic diversity inclusion program for Anoka-Ramsey. All of these committees are still in the planning stages which means no changes will be made to any Anoka-Ramsey campus until next year.
Olsen decided to get the ball rolling.
“When we had the incidents I said you know, we need to do things a little bit sooner,” Olsen said.
She wanted students to know that their feedback is extremely important to the Anoka-Ramsey faculty and that the faculty think harassment is a very important issue.
Survey results
One part of the survey asked students how comfortable they were in stopping in-person or social media harassment.
“Basically people experience or observe bullying or harassment online… a lot. Over half of the students [at Anoka-Ramsey] observed or experienced [harassment] on a daily basis,” Olsen said.
This is a very high percentage compared to the 12 percent of students who observe or experience harassment in-person on a weekly or daily basis.
Olsen also found that 80 percent of students are somewhat or very confident to stop in-person harassment whereas only 56 percent of students are somewhat or very confident to stop harassment on social media.
“Fewer people, from these results, seem to be confident or know what to do with harassment online,” Olsen said.
The last survey question asked what students thoughts on the importance of Anoka-Ramsey addressing harassment.
Over 90 percent of the students who responded to the survey believed that it was either somewhat important or extremely important.
After analyzing these results Olsen hosted the Feb. 28 student survey meeting where students at Anoka-Ramsey were encouraged to come and give feedback and create more dialogue on the students’ thoughts about harassment.
“We tend to forget that bullying is still in college,” one student pointed out.
“It does happen, it does exist, and it’s not acceptable when it crosses the line,” said a professor in relation to harassment.
Solutions to harassment
During the meeting, several solutions to create a safer environment for all students on campus were discussed.
The solutions discussed were directly related to the results of the survey.
One tactic to ending a harassing situation is to bring the victim away instead of confronting the harasser, which could increase the danger of the scene.
It is encouraged for a person to approach the victim, pretend to know them, and lead them away from the harasser. In this way that person has stopped a harassing situation and can check on the victim to see whether or not they are okay.
Olsen is still in the beginning stages of processing the results of the student survey but part of the actions directly resulting from the survey are based on student’s wants.
“The goal would be, becoming aware and then changing our behavior,” Olsen said.