HEDS Campus Climate Survey
The HEDS Campus Climate Survey asks students, faculty, staff, and administrators about their perceptions of their institution’s climate, how their institution supports different people and groups on their campus, and about their experiences with discrimination and harassment at their institution.
The survey is designed to be administered to everyone in the campus community – faculty, staff, administrators, and students. The survey usually takes around 15 minutes to complete, and participants’ responses are anonymous.
Since 2017, HEDS has administered this Campus Climate Survey to 320,000 staff, students, and faculty at over 400 institutions.
If you are interested in a climate survey for improving community and belonging on your campus, we recommend the HEDS Sense of Community Survey.
Click on the following questions to learn more.
You can administer the HEDS Campus Climate Survey for any 3–6 week period between October 19, 2026, and April 23, 2027.
Please be aware that you must register at least seven weeks (35 business days) prior to the date on which you plan to begin administering the survey.
Live updates:
- We provide ongoing updates while your survey is open, giving you a first look at select high-level data. These updates will give you an early, overall sense of how people responded to parts of the survey, allow you to gauge your response rates so you can adjust your communication strategies if necessary, and provide an immediate summary of results as soon as the survey closes.
Unit-record survey data:
- Your institution’s unit-record survey data in both SPSS and Microsoft Excel files. These include responses to the closed-ended questions only.
- A separate formatted Microsoft Excel file with your open-ended survey responses. The responses in this file cannot be linked to responses in your unit-record data file.
- We will send you your unit-record data and open-ended response file no later than 50 business days after your survey closes. This timeline ensures we can thoroughly review responses and remove the names of anyone who identifies themselves or is accused of discrimination and/or harassment.
- Given the sensitive nature of this data, we require that you accept our secure data handling agreement before we send you any data files.
Comparative report:
- A report that compares the responses of your students and employees to the students and employees of all other participating institutions on all survey questions and indicators.
- We cannot begin working on the comparison reports until the survey closes for all institutions at the end of April 2027. We anticipate delivering these reports by late summer 2027.
YES! Here’s how:
- We insert your institution’s name at the top of each page of the survey and in the text of applicable questions
- We personalize the survey invitations and reminders with your institution’s name, and they are signed by people from your institution.
- You can add custom, institution-specific questions at the end of the survey
While you can add supplemental questions to the end, we do not modify our survey questions or response options. In order for us to offer the benefit of comparative data between participating institutions in our survey reports, the questions and response options have to be the same across all the colleges and universities using the survey.
- Survey base cost – $4,125
- Survey base cost for HEDS members – $675
These prices include up to 10 supplemental questions. There are some custom options for additional fees. You will find all survey options and fees in the survey information sheet. Please click on the “Survey Options, Policies, and Fees (PDF)” button in the Downloads section of this webpage.
To learn more about your institution becoming a HEDS member, please visit our Join HEDS page.
If you have any questions, please email us at CampusClimateSurvey@hedsconsortium.org.
Downloads