UNM to survey students about sexual misconduct

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - The University of New Mexico is hoping to gauge how prevalent sexual misconduct is on campus through an online survey.

The confidential survey goes live on Monday and will be available to a combined 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students for six weeks, according to the Albuquerque Journal (https://bit.ly/1qgUI54).

Heather Cowan, the administrator in charge of making sure UNM complies with the federal gender discrimination law, Title IX, said she hopes the survey responses will help the university know if it is making progress in managing cases of sexual harassment and assault while awaiting results of a Department of Justice investigation into the topic.

“The results will answer whether or not the university is serving students in the best possible way, if prevention efforts are effective and whether or not response efforts are working,” Cowan said.

The U.S. Department of Justice in 2014 announced an investigation into UNM’s policies regarding sexual assaults. UNM officials said they are now awaiting those results, but that they wanted to address the issue on their own.

Students who were not randomly selected to participate in the survey will also be able to fill out a response if they want to say something about harassment or sexual assault on campus. Those responses won’t be included in the official survey.

An outside firm is conducting the survey and Cowan said responses should be available to the public by summer.

___

Information from: Albuquerque Journal, https://www.abqjournal.com