These are the items contained in the survey made available to college faculty and students on Monday, Feb 19 at approximately 10:30 AM. I had worked on the survey for about a month, sending copies to about a dozen senior faculty members and conducting pilot studies to refine and improve its content with students in my two PSY 210 (I/O Psychology) sections. I sent a copy of the survey to the dean three days prior to posting it, but had not received any response from him. I did receive substantive feedback from 5 tenured faculty members and administrators including my academic division chair, the current chair of the Institutional Review Board and director of academic assessment, and three other faculty members familiar with the theoretical constructs and research methods employed by the scenarios (i.e., situational judgement tasks and indexes). While several faculty reviewers predicted the controversy the survey might engender, none of them raised ethical concerns, issues relating to confidentiality, or potential harm to respondents. Since the identity of individuals was not revealed and only those who already were aware of details of the grievance and subsequent proceeding would be able to connect individuals with the fact patterns contained in the scenarios, I believed that confidentiality was not an issue. I also believed that a neutral presentation of the issues related to the Title IX proceedings would not cause harm to others. If members of the college community are subject to punitive actions for their behavior, they are entitled to know how the explicit rules & regulations are interpreted and applied. The broad and vague rhetoric contained in the Faculty Manual is insufficient warning of actions that can lead to severe administrative sanctions.
