Campus Climate: Understanding the Critical Components of Today's Colleges and Universities

Book excerpt: Careful study of campus climate is critical for improved individual and organizational performance. This issue of New Directions for Institutional Research offers specific measures that institutional researchers can use in identifying, defining, and articulating the range of components that create a campus climate. The authors provide guidelines for effective assessment of today's diverse campus populations, highlighting key diversity issues that affect women, racial and ethnic minorities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and disabled students. They also evaluate three decades of relevant data on climate trAnds to shed light on which programs and policies will be relevant for American higher education in the next millennium. This is the 98th issue of the quarterly journal New Directions for Institutional Research. For more information on the series, please see the Journals and Periodicals section.