Institutional Compliance

Executive Summary:

In Spring 2023, SUNY Cortland students and employees participated in the SUNY System’s bi-annual Sexual Violence Prevalence Survey (SVP) Survey. The goal of this online survey is to gather information about the rate of incidents of sexual violence and about the knowledge of policies and resources among students and employees. Specifically, the survey is aimed to address student and employee knowledge about:

• The Title IX Coordinator’s role;
• Campus policies and procedures addressing sexual assault;
• How and where to report sexual violence as a victim/survivor or witness;
• The availability of resources on and off campus, such as counseling, health, academic assistance;
• The prevalence of victimization and perpetration of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking on and off campus during a set time period (for example, the last two years);
• Bystander attitudes and behavior;
• Whether victims/survivors reported to the College/University and/or police, and reasons why they did or did not report.
• The general awareness of the difference, if any, between the institution’s policies and the penal law; and
• The general awareness of the definition of affirmative consent.

Survey takeaways:

• Student response rates and question completion rates were lower than previous years. Employee response rates were adequate for collecting reliable information.
• With low student response rates, the data is less reliable in evaluating overall campus incidents and knowledge.  
• Student respondents report higher awareness of policies, procedures, and how to contact the Title IX Coordinator than at other SUNY comprehensive universities.
• All student respondents were aware they could report sexual violence to the Title IX Coordinator.
• Employees are generally aware of the policies, laws, and available resources for incidents of sexual assault.

Background

The SVP survey is administered every other year by all SUNY campuses, who work closely with SUNY System Administration to coordinate the survey administration itself.  An effort is made to keep the questions from one administration to the next as consistent as possible to allow for reliable and meaningful longitudinal data.  System-wide IRB review takes place for each survey administration. In previous years, SUNY Cortland offered incentives to campus survey participants. This year, we were not permitted to offer incentives.

Our campus administered the student and employee survey between March 20, 2023, and April 9. 2023.   Excluded survey populations were individuals under 18 years of age, all incarcerated individuals regardless of age, and all students concurrently enrolled in high school regardless of age. 

Student Survey Results

Response Rate and Demographics

Email invitations to 6,401 students resulted in 218 completed surveys, for a 3.4% response. This response rate is below the overall 6% response rate for SUNY and lower than the 15% response rate of the 2021 survey for SUNY Cortland students.

77% of respondents identified as female, despite comprising 56% of the surveyed student body. 76% of students identified as heterosexual and 12.9% identified as bisexual.

67% lived in on-campus housing (+7% from 2021, during the pandemic). Zero students reported living in an outdoor location, indoor location not meant for habitation, or shelter/emergency housing.

Results

SUNY Cortland saw improvements in student awareness of sexual violence and resources, as compared to the SUNY Cortland 2021 SVP survey. However, the low student response rate may have affected these results. In comparison to other SUNY comprehensive universities, SUNY Cortland student respondents have a deeper understanding of sexual violence, policy and procedure, reporting, and resources.

Knowledge of Campus Policies and Resources

• 91.2% of respondents agreed that their campus has policies and procedures specifically addressing sexual assault (+.7% change from 2021).
• 72% of respondents reported that they know how to contact the Title IX Coordinator (+7% change from 2021).
• 91% of students reported that they know the definition of affirmative consent (+13% change from 2021)
• 100% of respondents know that they can file a formal complaint about sexual assault on campus with the Title IX Coordinator (+20% change from 2021). Knowledge of who a formal complaint about sexual assault on campus can be filed with has increased across all other categories, by 5%-10% per category, and a change of 20% for University Police.
• General awareness of campus and community resources increased overall, by 1% to 15% per category. Of note awareness of Student Conduct. University Police, and a health educator increased by 13%-15% for each category.
• 20% of respondents did not know how to report any type of sexual violence (unchanged from 2021)
• There was an overall increase in awareness of written and/or verbal information, the largest increase was on the definition of sexual assault (+9.3%).

Experiences

• For students who reported having experienced an incident of sexual harassment or assault, none said they filed a formal complaint with anyone at the university. In 2021 0.6% of students shared that they filed a formal complaint.
• Students appear to trust the university and the most cited reason for not filing a formal complaint was “I did not think it was important enough” at 65%. In 2021 the most cited reason was “I did not recognize it was sexual assault at the time” at 6.7%. In 2023 15% of students were worried the university would take action compared to 1.6% in 2021.

Employee Survey Results: Spring 2023

Response Rate

Email invitations to 1,512 faculty and staff resulted in 386 completed surveys, for a 25% response rate. 62% of respondents were female and 31% was male. The majority of responses came from full time permanent and continuing staff who represent 65% of survey answers.

Knowledge of Campus Policies

Generally, SUNY Cortland employees report greater knowledge of campus policies around sexual violence, compared to the overall SUNY average. Faculty and staff generally had similar knowledge of campus policies. 

• 98% of respondents know that SUNY Cortland has “policies and procedures specifically addressing sexual assault.”
• 89% of respondents know how to contact the Title IX Coordinator (+2% from 2021).
• Between 87% to 92% of employees report receiving information about topics specifically related to sexual assault, rates are 1% to 2% higher than 2021.
• The survey indicates that all respondents regardless of gender or sexual orientation have a strong awareness of policy and resources.
• Employees are more likely to know how to report sexual harassment (95%), sexual assault (94%) and stalking (88%) than domestic/dating violence (86%). There was improvement across the board from 2021. For example, knowledge of reporting domestic/dating violence increased 6% from 2021 and knowledge of reporting stalking increased 8% from 2021.
• 66% know about SUNY’s alcohol and drug amnesty policy (+5% from 2021)

Experiences

• 14% of employees indicated having had a student disclose unwanted sexual experiences within the past year (+7% from 2021).
• 19% of respondents who learned of a student’s unwanted sexual experiences did not officially report the incident. This is higher than 2021 by 13%.
• 6% of employees reported that during the last year they experienced unwanted sexual comments, sexual slurs, or demeaning jokes, which is increased from 2021 by 1%.
• 3.7% said they had received unwanted sexually suggestive digital communications (4% in 2021).

Next Steps:

• SUNY Cortland will seek to offer incentives during the next survey administration to engage more student respondents and increase the reporting rate.
• SUNY Cortland will continue to provide education on campus policies, procedures, and reporting options to all students and employees.
• SUNY Cortland will continue to provide prevention education on topics of sexual violence.
• SUNY Cortland recently centralized the Title IX Office staff to a unified location on campus. In addition, it recently increased prevention education in Orientation. These two changes will remain and may have influenced the increased awareness demonstrated by student respondents.

The campus climate survey administered this year was intended to gather information about the rate of incidents of sexual violence and knowledge of policies and resources. By law, every SUNY campus is required to participate in this survey project. This report includes an Executive Summary that may be used for public websites or other campus publications. As per policy ‘Results will be published on the campus website providing no personally identifiable information shall be shared’ Details and recommendations are also included in this report: http://system.suny.edu/sexual-violence-prevention-workgroup/policies/campus-climate/

Last Updated November 2023

Reports of certain crimes occurring in certain geographic locations will be included in the SUNY Cortland Clery Act Annual Security Reported in an anonymized manner that neither identifies the specifics of the crime or the identity of the reporting individual. For more information, contact the Title IX Coordinator at 607-753-4550.

SUNY Cortland is obligated to issue timely warnings of Clery Act crimes occurring within relevant geography that represent a serious or continuing threat to students and employees (subject to exceptions when potentially compromising law enforcement efforts and when the warning itself could potentially identify the reporting individual). A reporting individual will never be identified in a timely warning.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act allows institutions to share information with parents when (1) there is a health or safety emergency, or (2) when the student is depending on either parents' prior year federal income tax return. Generally, SUNY Cortland will not share information about a report of sexual violence with parents without the permission of the reporting individual.

SUNY Cortland is required to annually report campus crime statistics to the U.S. Department of Education as required by Title 20 of the U.S. Code Section 1092(f). This information can be found on the U.S. Department of Education’s website at https://ope.ed.gov/campussafety/#/.

Learn more about the Clery Act and the Campus Security and Fire Safety Report and See SUNY Cortland Statistics.

Section 106.45(b) of the 2020 Final Title IX Rules require the sharing of “All materials used to train Title IX Coordinators, investigators, decision-makers, and any person who facilitates an informal resolution process. A recipient must make these training materials publicly available on its website, or if the recipient does not maintain a website the recipient must make these materials available upon request for inspection by members of the public.”

SUNY Cortland is proud to be a member of the SUNY Student Conduct Institute (SCI) which provides the appropriate training materials to meet the necessary criteria as outlined by the 2020 Final Title IX Rules including training that does not rely on sex stereotypes and promote impartial investigations and adjudications. To review our training materials, please visit the SUNY SCI website.