McGill Physics:

Physics Climate Survey

Executive Summary

In Summer 2019, a group of students set out to examine how different people in the Department of Physics experience this workplace and community. With similar efforts also underway by a group of staff members, these collaborations combined into the Climate Survey Task Force. Officially sanctioned by the Department of Physics, this task force spent the next year developing a departmental climate survey in consultation with experts both inside and outside the department. The final product was deployed in August-October 2020 and the results were analyzed in the ensuing months. Table 1 shows the response rates within each constituency of the department. This document presents the main takeaways of the survey.

Table 1: Response rates over each constituency in the department.
Constituency	Response rates
Undergraduates	138 (37% of eligible respondents)
Graduate students	108 (60%)
Faculty	30 (53%)
Postdoctoral scholars	16 (36%)
Staff	7 (54%)

In examining our findings, it is important to understand the goals of this survey. Our intent is not to draw conclusions about climate issues in the field of physics or in our broader social context. Our survey asked targeted questions about our department. It is for this reason that we have refrained from performing statistical tests on our data, since our goal is not to draw inferences about a larger population. Instead, we have simply provided descriptive statistics. Although we have highlighted some clear trends, we invite the reader to draw their own conclusions. Our task is to present the data.

This executive summary is not intended to be the last word on our department’s climate. Instead, our hope is that it is a conversation starter. Indeed, the aspiration is to redeploy this survey on a regular basis to track our progress. This document serves as a concrete manifestation of two important themes: 1) our desire as physicists to take a careful data-driven approach to improving our department’s climate, and 2) our commitment to this cause, be they from grassroots efforts led by students and staff or official actions led by department leaders.

The Climate Survey questions were divided into groups that addressed elements of peoples’ experiences within the Department. The major takeaways from each question group are summarized below under each expandable topic.

General climate, comfort, feelings of belonging:

Overall, most respondents agree that the department cares about climate policies and EDI. However, people of minority status (whether by gender, race, or sexual orientation) disagree at higher rates than their counterparts in the majority.
Opinion is split about whether there is adequate discussion of climate (with women, people of races other than white or Asian, and LGBTQ+ respondents disagreeing at higher rates)
People of races other than white or Asian, as well as LGBTQ+ respondents disagree at higher rates that they feel like a part of the department and that they feel close to others in the department.
Most people feel safe in the department, but women, people of races other than white or Asian, and LGBTQ+ respondents feel less safe.
Respondents of minority status are more likely than their counterparts to feel uncomfortable expressing their opinion about workplace issues. Overall, however, most respondents do feel comfortable bringing up workplace issues.

Career/Academic support:

Overall, a majority of respondents believe that the department articulates clear expectations and guidelines related to their professional goals. However, graduate students, women, people of races other than white or Asian, and LGBTQ+ respondents disagree at higher rates. The free-response section of the survey highlights issues around lack of support for new faculty and faculty with dependents, and career advancement for faculty.
Graduate students who identify as women, races other than white or Asian, or LGBTQ+ respondents disagree at higher rates that their supervisor provides them with enough resources for potential grants/fellowships and that their supervisor provides them with enough career support.
Faculty have a clearer understanding than any other group about whether their accomplishments are recognized in the department
Women and people of colour disagree at higher rates that they are credited for the work they do.

Health, well-being, and emotional support:

Less than 50% of respondents agree that mental health is viewed as seriously as physical health. Respondents who belong to gender or racial minorities are more likely to disagree.
A majority of participants do not agree that there is a supportive network in the department for people going through a difficult time. Women, respondents who identify as races other than white or Asian, and LGBTQ+ respondents disagree at even higher rates.
Students and postdocs are more comfortable talking with peers than with supervisors about their mental health, while the opposite is true of faculty and staff.
Most people in the department don’t feel like they maintain a good work/life balance. This is particularly true of respondents who identify as races other than white or Asian, women, and undergraduate students.
A plurality of respondents agree that they have a manageable workload. Women, faculty members, and undergraduate students are less likely to agree than their peers.

Classroom experience:

Respondents generally agree that they feel valued in the classroom, but this association is weaker for LGBTQ+ respondents and those that identified as neither white nor Asian.
Respondents tend to rate interactions with professors and TAs more positively in non-laboratory courses than in laboratory courses. However, in both laboratory and non-laboratory courses, respondents who identify as races other than white or Asian have a less positive experience.
While levels of discomfort asking questions in the classroom are high (30%), women, LGBTQ+ respondents, and respondents who identify as races other than white or Asian report even higher levels of discomfort. Respondents with lower comfort levels with English are more likely to feel uncomfortable asking questions in class.
Respondents who identify as races other than white or Asian rate their interactions with their peers and lab partners much more negatively than white or Asian respondents.
LGBTQ+ respondents report more negative attitudes about the composition of their lab group.

Harassment/Reporting:

Women, non-binary respondents, respondents of color, and LGBTQ+ respondents are more likely to experience harassment in the department than their peers.
Women and non-binary respondents are more likely to have been confided in by someone else about an experience of harassment or exclusionary behaviour. Women, non-binary respondents, and LGBTQ+ respondents are also more likely to have witnessed harassment happening to someone else.
While respondents generally disagree that they understand McGill’s formal policies and procedures about sexual assault, just under half of respondents have confidence that McGill administers these procedures fairly.
Women, non-binary respondents, and respondents who identify as races other than white or Asian are more likely to prefer anonymity if they were to report instances of harassment they experience. LGBTQ+ respondents are more likely to say that they do not feel safe reporting at all. Women, LGBTQ+ respondents, and those that identify as races other than white or Asian prefer anonymity when reporting harassment they have witnessed others experiencing.
Men and respondents who identify as neither Asian nor white are less aware of their options for reporting. Overall satisfaction with the outcomes of reporting is low.

General observations

Responses often skew positively in sentiment when total responses were plotted, then show discrepancies in positivity when separated into groups by identity factors--such as by sexual orientation, race, gender, disability, and proficiency with English. Two such examples are gender, when asked about experiences of harassment in the Department, and race, when asked about feelings of support and belonging. Other identity factors examined for some survey questions, such as primary language or religiosity, did not show significant impact on overall experience. Additionally, aggregated responses of all participants show that certain areas of the departmental experience are overall ranked positively, such as classroom experience, while others are overall ranked poorly, such as career support and harassment.

Conclusion

This report aims to present a comprehensive but non-exhaustive set of results from the collected quantitative data, where we have all but omitted the free-write questions to avoid sharing identifiable information. We are very grateful for the written comments we received on a range of topics which often corroborate the quantitative results but more importantly add great depth, and can help inform future climate surveys as well as departmental action items. The written comments were shared with the Department Chair. Further analyses on any part of the data could be conducted, similarly with the aid of an external analyst to protect respondent anonymity. Additionally, a departmental climate survey should be deployed every one-to-two years to be able to examine longitudinal trends. While this report does not present recommendations, it can serve as a useful guide to societal patterns and hierarchies that could inform future departmental actions. We hope community discussions will be set up to facilitate conversion about the results and implications.

Finally, we stress that while this report is a rich source of information, it should be regarded as just one of many ways to gain understanding about our Department community. In particular, we stress the importance of qualitative input in painting a nuanced picture of our community members' lived experiences[1]. We also caution against the over-reliance on data-driven approaches, where concrete survey numbers are used to dictate social changes that treat only symptoms rather underlying causes[2]. We encourage readers to view this report as one piece to propel further multiple community-minded actions that will enable continuous, grounded improvements to our department.

Obtaining the full report

If you would like to view the official report of the survey, please contact the physics department climate survey taskforce at climatesurvey at physics dot mcgill dot ca and the physics department chair at chair at physics dot mcgill dot ca.

Acknowledgements

We would like to extend our thanks to those who participated in the McGill Department of Physics 2020 Climate Survey, whether by completing the survey or engaging with the results, such as by reading this executive summary and the report. This climate survey examined self-reported experiences of community members of the Department of Physics at McGill University with quantitative, scale-based questions and free-write comment questions spanning a range of topics, from academic and career support to interpersonal interactions. We examined how positivity of experience compares when we look at all responses irrespective of identity factors versus responses separated into identity groups, as permissible without compromising anonymity of participants.

[1] Kuper, A., Reeves, S., & Levinson, W. (2008). Qualitative Research: An Introduction to Reading and Appraising Qualitative Research. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 337(7666), 404-407. Retrieved April 23, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20510591
[2] Pando, Jesus. The Data Fallacy. DePaul University Department of Physics and Astrophysics. https://indico.cern.ch/event/1019224/contributions/4277548/attachments/2219263/3757777/The_Data_Fallacy-Pando.pdf