NOTE: Please use your ACU email to sign this petition. Non-ACU signatures will be removed.
OVERVIEW:
The Office of Multicultural Affairs would like to front a Diversity climate survey to attain statistics on certain unmonitored student demographics. The cultural diversity of Abilene Christian University has grown almost four-fold in the past 2 decades. From 10.5% in 1998 to 35.3% in 2018 (resident non-white student that have to declare ethnicity). Such improvement can only be monitored as ACU has preserved and maintained detailed records of student demographics over the years. Unfortunately, these records do not tell us much about how students identify themselves or their sexuality. These records also don't tell us much about what religions students subscribe to outside of Christianity. Nor does it represent if they truly believe in Christianity. It would be beneficial for the university to have anonymous data on how many students identify as a non-binary, non-heterosexual or non-christian.
PURPOSE & GOALS:
- To gain insight on the number of students in the university actually subscribe to Christianity what percentage of our population subscribe to other religions,
- Gain an understanding of how much of our population feel comfortable expressing themselves and their identities in our community,
- Recognizing that sexuality and gender can go beyond the binary categories,
- Create insightful data for staff and administrators,
- Provide a framework for the university to track below-the-surface demographics beyond the recruiting process,
- Allow for accurate representation of the various genders, sexualities, and faiths that can be found on campus.
Such a necessary survey can only be conducted from an office like the Office of Multicultural Affairs to avoid students from feeling targeted or finding the purpose of the climate survey disingenuous.
