Georgetown Law Engagement Survey

In September 2022, Dean Treanor announced the formal launch of the Georgetown Law’s 2022-23 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategic Planning Process. The Strategic Plan will be informed by the diverse insights, perspectives, and experiences of our students, faculty, and staff. The plan will help Georgetown Law build a community that fully embraces and lives its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and works together to advance a common purpose and mission.

To facilitate the development of this plan, the Law Center has engaged T.H. Easter Consulting, LLC. We hope to complete the Strategic Plan and develop an implementation plan by the end of this academic year so that we may begin executing against that plan in fall 2023.

As part of this process, beginning in the spring 2023 semester, T.H. Easter Consulting will administer an engagement survey via Energage to all faculty, staff/AAPs, and students. Later in the spring semester, T.H. Easter Consulting team members will also be contacting individuals from these stakeholder groups to participate in interviews and focus groups.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is the Georgetown Law Engagement Survey?

The survey, formally known as the Energage Engagement Survey, is a nationally-recognized and validated tool for measuring engagement in an organization. High levels of engagement are foundational to the success of any DEI initiatives.

How is this Engagement Survey different from the Georgetown University cultural climate survey that was just completed?

Georgetown University completed its first cultural climate surveys for faculty and for staff/AAPs in November 2022. The assessments will enable the University to gain a better understanding of the experiences of all faculty and staff/AAPs related to issues of workplace experience, inclusion and diversity. The Georgetown Law Engagement Survey is specific to the Law campus and will help us better understand how engagement exists among various groups at the Law Center. This assessment will also include students and active adjunct faculty, in addition to staff/APP community members. The Engagement Survey is one part of a layered approach to gather insights that will be vital to the efficacy and integrity of our DEI strategic planning effort.

Who is invited to complete the survey?

All faculty, active adjuncts, fellows, staff and students are invited and encouraged to complete the survey to provide as complete a picture of the state of engagement at the Law Center as possible.

How was the survey developed?

As mentioned above, the Energage Engagement Survey is a well-regarded tool that is nationally validated. This allows for benchmarking the Law Center community’s level of engagement against other organizations of our size, geographic and industry categories. The survey is also the instrument used in the Top Workplace competition sponsored by The Washington Post and other prominent newspapers around the country. In the future, should we elect to participate in the Top Workplace competition, we would use this same survey instrument.

How is the survey administered?

This confidential survey will be administered online via email link.  As all interactions regarding the survey will be managed by Energage, we trust that we can count on your candid feedback to provide an accurate assessment of engagement here at the Law Center.  We have provided your Georgetown email to Energage to use exclusively for implementation, and you should expect the survey link with a unique embedded survey response code directly from Energage. The survey can be completed via computer, tablet, or smartphone.

• For all faculty and staff/AAP, the survey will begin on January 4, 2023. 
• For all students, the survey will begin on March 21, 2023. 

Why is Georgetown Law administering this survey?

The Law Center, in conjunction with our consultants, T. H. Easter Consulting, is administering the survey to provide insights into the lives, experiences and perspectives of our faculty, active adjuncts, fellows, staff and students seen through a lens of engagement in the community. The feedback offered will provide the foundation upon which our DEI strategic plan will be built.

Why should I take the survey?

Many organizations measure engagement among their teams and across the whole organization to ensure that their organization operates in a professional and inclusive way.  The goal of engagement is to foster a sense of collegiality, care, and an ability to participate as full members of the community, where all are afforded opportunities to learn and grow as individuals. Through your candid feedback, the survey results will provide evidence-based data as to how and where the Law Center may be falling short in meeting the needs of every member of our community.  These insights will be vital to the efficacy and integrity of our DEI strategic planning effort.

If I have a question or difficulty completing the survey, who should I contact?

Please contact Michelle Planty, T.H. Easter Consulting, at michelle@theasterconsulting.com or GeorgetownLawSurvey@theasterconsulting.com.

Will the survey be accessible to employees with visual and other disabilities

Energage is committed to ensuring digital accessibility for the widest possible audience. Energage surveys are fully conformant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level A. Energage products are routinely tested internally using NVDA and VoiceOver screen-readers, color-blindness emulators and ADA/WCAG compliance scanners. In addition, Energage uses Deque’s axeTM to capture accessibility issues prior to release.

Were students, faculty and staff involved in the development and planning of this survey?

The survey was developed solely by Energage and has been administered confidentially to over 27 million individuals at over 70,000 organizations throughout the world.

How were the demographic categories and other terms selected in the survey?

Demographic categories include tenure, job grade, salary band, gender, race/ethnicity, generation, department and job type. These categories are standard for the Energage survey.

Who analyzes the data?

The results are prepared by Energage’s data experts and analyzed by T.H. Easter Consulting.

Is the survey confidential? Who will have the data? Could my data be identified?

The Law Center is committed to maintaining each respondent’s confidentiality. Without confidentiality, this kind of survey will not provide the candid responses that make it valuable. Protecting the confidentiality of responders is one of the reasons we have hired Energage, a third-party provider, to administer the survey.  As mentioned, survey codes are used to provide access to the survey database and to generate email reminders when submissions are late.  The data, which cannot be identified by individual respondents, will reside with Energage.

Will the results of the survey be publicly available?

Yes, anonymized results will be shared with the community. The shared results will broadly identify major trends, challenges, and opportunities arising from the data, as well as resulting goals, strategies, and proposed actions. All data will be aggregated and provided around thematic patterns that emerge to avoid compromising confidentiality.