Social Justice @ CUA A Social Concerns Initiative

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 15, 2002

Catholic University student survey uncovers information on the regard for social justice issues on campus

            In the late spring of 2002, the Social Concerns Initiative of CUA sponsored a student social justice survey on campus.  Yielding nearly 300 completed surveys, the group managed to collect information and data of nearly 15% of the CUA undergraduate student body.  The survey targeted issues directly related to social justice in many different programs and offices on campus. 

Of the surveys that were completed by the students, 10.89% were seniors, 24.40% were juniors, 26.67% were sophomores and 30 were freshman.  An overwhelming majority of the students were in the School of Arts and Sciences, 71%, while the remainder of the students surveyed represented the other schools of the university: the School of Architecture, Engineering, Music, Philosophy, and Nursing.

            When students were asked if social justice issues were recognized, acknowledged and publicized on campus, 59% responded in saying that yes, while 37% of those surveyed did not believe that those issues were recognized on campus.  Of those surveyed, 51% believed that social justice issues were not involved in the academics of this university.  Activities that were most often cited by students to address social justice issues were discussion, reading and lecture.  In fact, 45% of all the responses cited discussion about the social justice issues as being the most prominent venue.

When asked about student’s extracurricular activities, 50.56% of those polled said that social justice issues were the main focus of their activities on campus.  The most common responses among those students polled were volunteering, pulling in 9.66% of the total responses, follwed by Habitat for Humanity (7.59%), Prolife issues including Students for Life and the Prolife march (7.59%), food runs (6.20%) and general Campus Ministry volunteer activities (5.30%).

Of the 260 students polled at Catholic University, 235 of them said that they would like to see more social justice activities on campus.  That represents 87.04% of those polled.  When further asked about what areas of campus that they would like to see this carried out, outreach to the entire student body was the most common, representing 65.37% of the total responses by students, 260.  More involvement in academics was the next highest with 50.58% of those students polled wanting to see an increase in social justice activities in this area.