The Ethics Research Center sent a Values & Cultures Survey to every active member of the Penn State community to assess the ethical culture.

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The Ethics Research Center is a nonprofit organization that assists Penn State in assessing ethical attitudes of the campuses.

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The survey was sent to every member, including students, faculty, staff, administrators, technical service employees and postdoctoral scholars/fellows on all campuses across the Penn State system. The purpose of the survey is to assess attitudes and realities of the ethics and cultural environment.

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It is a follow-up survey of one sent in 2013 which helped create initiatives to bolster Penn State’s ethical culture. For example, an initiative to ensure that students and faculty know their rights and protections when it comes to reporting misconduct on campus.

The new survey is projected to gauge the University’s progress, evaluate the programs it implemented from the last survey and identify areas of further development.

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Many of the questions asked opinions about integrity and ethics related to faculty, advisors, the dean and even the president and vice president. For example, the survey asked if the respondent believes that undergraduate students generally act in an ethical manner relating to academic integrity.

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The end of the survey collects demographic information to properly match the data to its demographic background. The questions scaled from strongly agree to strongly disagree, and everything in between. All data is completely anonymous and coded in a manner that respondents cannot be tracked down.

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Many Penn State students think the survey is a good thing and shows that the campus is making effort to create meaningful changes.

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Kate Becker, senior International Business student, said "I like that Penn State is paying attention to ethics and cultural development. I don’t think that most college campuses pay attention as much to these types of things."

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Rena Gerber, junior Interdisciplinary Business and Engineering student said, "I didn’t take it but it sounds like a good thing to me."

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Jacob Ryan, senior Business student said "Penn State has always been good at looking at aspects of the community that are often overlooked. It’s something that really sets us apart from other colleges."

The survey can still be completed to assist in ethics and cultural development. It can be found in every Penn State member’s email account that was assigned to them. The Ethics Research Center can be reached via phone at 1-800-777-1285 or 1-703-647-2185, or by email at ethicssurvey@ethics.org for questions relating to the survey.