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Survey Results

Currently, responses have been received for this survey.

The table below represents the 1,471 responses to the survey as of June 9. More than 85 percent of the responses are from University faculty and staff. Graduate students make up another six percent of the responses, followed by undergraduate students at nearly five percent and “other” coming in at just over 3.5 percent. In the “Other” category, some participants identified themselves as alumni, retired faculty/staff, postdocs and employees of UNC Healthcare and other affiliated foundations.

Preliminary Survey Results – June 2021 (1,471 responses)
Respondent Type Number Percentage
Employee-Faculty 473 32.15%
Employee-Staff 807 54.86%
Graduate Student 78 5.3%
Undergraduate Student 66 4.49%
Other 47 3.2%
The following table includes the 21 words respondents could suggest for the UNC Statement of Ethics. The words are listed in order by rank, starting with “Integrity” which had the highest number of #1 rankings. The “Total” column depicts the total number of times a word was selected by respondents in any rank. Respondents were instructed to suggest up to five words for the Statement of Ethics. In cases where respondents selected more than five words, only their top five choices were included in this analysis.

Ranked Order of Respondents’ Suggested Words
Suggested Word First Choice Second Choice Third Choice Fourth Choice Fifth Choice Total
Integrity 221 123 123 111 83 661
Accountability 199 149 88 67 69 572
Community 100 57 57 52 63 329
Transparency 88 97 91 91 93 460
Equity 78 75 90 101 76 420
Excellence 63 47 31 43 65 249
Diversity 51 87 75 93 72 378
Mutual Respect 37 67 60 49 65 278
Equality 33 41 52 56 44 226
Responsibility 32 65 70 76 52 295
Inclusiveness 30 57 81 98 91 357
Empowerment 23 33 34 29 30 149
Fairness 21 49 48 34 37 189
Curiosity 19 11 14 17 20 81
Candor 15 19 20 15 21 90
Innovation 14 19 30 22 37 122
Service 13 18 36 34 43 144
Teamwork 12 20 18 29 21 100
Adaptability 9 17 12 12 18 70
Engagement 7 15 23 14 28 87
Resilience 4 2 13 13 18 50

Unranked Words to Avoid and Neutral Words

The following two tables show the number of times a word was selected as “avoid” or “neutral”. Respondents had no limit to the number of words they could select for these categories.

Words Respondents want us to Avoid
Word Choice Avoid
Candor 332
Resilience 313
Curiosity 311
Innovation 288
Excellence 251
Fairness 245
Teamwork 229
Equality 220
Empowerment 217
Service 176
Engagement 138
Adaptability 138
Mutual Respect 120
Equity 116
Inclusiveness 99
Diversity 96
Responsibility 92
Transparency 90
Community 59
Accountability 51
Integrity 35
Words about which Respondents were Neutral
Word Neutral
Adaptability 806
Engagement 763
Service 686
Teamwork 673
Resilience 647
Curiosity 637
Empowerment 628
Responsibility 605
Candor 605
Community 601
Innovation 595
Mutual Respect 590
Fairness 553
Equality 553
Inclusiveness 526
Diversity 512
Excellence 494
Equity 454
Transparency 439
Accountability 392
Integrity 279

Other Suggested Words from Respondents

In this section, words or ideas mentioned multiple times are denoted with the number of times they were mentioned in parenthesis following the word.

  • honesty (16)
  • compassion/empathy/care (14)
  • trust/trustworthy (7)
  • truth (7)
  • respect/respectful (6)
  • academic/intellectual freedom (4)
  • commitment (4)
  • morals (4)
  • environmental responsibility (3)
  • professional (3)
  • accountability (2)
  • compliance (2)
  • enforcement/consequences (2)
  • ethics/ethical (2)
  • excellence (2)
  • fairness (2)
  • humility (2)
  • justice (2)
  • responsibility (2)
Survey respondents had the option to leave free form comments. The table below provides an overview of themes detected in the 132 comments submitted, with selected quotes, ranked by most common to least.

Comments
Theme Count Percentage Examples
General Process Advice 46 27.38% “If your organization is mitigating risk through ethics, there should be more direct words used to reflect the meaning of ethics.  We want fairness and equality, but your job is to keep the University safe from various acts of harm to her.”

“Whatever statement(s)/outlook(s) we are seeking to develop, continue to stress our Carolina values & culture”
Ethics & Desire for Action Skepticism 37 22.02% “These are such a joke – there is NO way that UNC represents most of these. Literally – this is a joke of a survey to send to staff, faculty, and students. Do better.”

“Ethics is about behavior, not nice words that no one believes.  When, over the last decade, has the university done anything at all ethical unless it was forced to.”
Instrument Critique 23 13.69% “It was hard to pick just 5 words from your list”

“It would have been helpful for the survey to include a brief description of how the term is being viewed. For example, for some inclusiveness means simply including others often with a “kumbaya feel” whereas in a social justice sense inclusiveness means the sharing of power and authority in making decisions and determining actions.”
Futility Concerns 15 8.93% “I did the survey but don’t really see any value from it.”

“The University has a history of ethics violations related to treatment of minorities, women, and student athletes. It is hard to imagine that your survey will impact the leaderships decisions to make future ethics violations.”
Support for Initiative 15 8.93% “Great initiative.  Fully engage senior leaders, particularly the Chancellor! Governance and confidence are poor, we need this initiative!”

“Appreciate the thoughtful and creative approach”
Strengthen DEI 14 8.33% “Words like Fairness and Mutual Respect seem to me to be ways of dodging words like Equity. Take a stronger stand and go for Equity and Diversity. Words like Transparency and Accountability can be interpreted differently depending on the audience to whom one is accountable/transparent–while I think the University should be accountable to its ideals, I do NOT think we should put ourselves in a position where our ideals get used against us. I think instead we should emphasize working for all the communities the University is part of: campus, local, state, global, etc.”

“Please work with the DEI Council which is working on similar issues around accountability”
Not Ethics 11 6.55% “Make this a statement specifically about ethics — instead of trying to make it about everything.”

“Many of those words, while good and important, seems to be about things other than an ethics statement or policy. Be mindful that an ethics statement is not the place for every behavioral concept.”