Ithaca College

We are writing as students in the Department of Health Promotion and Physical Education (HPPE) to apologize to the campus community regarding a sexual health survey that we recently distributed as part of our Development and Evaluation of Health Programs course.

In designing the survey, we made some errors and assumptions about the LGBTQ population. We sincerely apologize to Nancy Reynolds, the campus community, and especially the LGBTQ community for our lack of sensitivity and understanding and for sending out a survey that was disrespectful to many. This experience reflects how much we still need to learn.

We now understand that our content unintentionally reinforced misinformation for respondents of all sexual orientations and gender identities. It was disheartening to hear that multiple students took the survey before we realized our error. We would like the campus community to know that we are using this opportunity as a learning experience for ourselves and all the students, staff, and faculty in our department to help prevent this from happening in the future.

We will not be re-issuing the survey. However, we did consult with faculty as well as staff and students with the Center for LGBTQ Education, Outreach & Services on campus to update the survey questions as a learning activity. Our revised survey better reflects academic excellence, best practices, and acceptable research practices. Most importantly, it now reflects IC's expectations regarding LGBTQ equity and inclusion. We appreciate everyone who provided input to us during this learning process, and commit to constructively using this opportunity to do better. We aspire to be more mindful when approaching topics that we may not have direct experience with nor fully understand.

Below we are including our contact information. We are more than willing to talk with individuals about any questions or concerns that they have.

Sincerely,

Margaret Heilshorn; mheilshorn@ithaca.edu

Leah DeFusco; ldefusco@ithaca.edu

Charlotte Hadley; chadley@ithaca.edu