UvA skipped monitor on students’ social safety during campus protests
During the 2024 campus occupations, the University of Amsterdam deliberately skipped its annual survey on students’ social safety. This occurred precisely at a time when concerns about student safety on campus were high. According to the UvA, a survey at that time would have produced “not properly comparable” figures.
Amid the pro-Palestinian demonstrations and occupations at the UvA in 2024, the university did not conduct its yearly survey on students’ social safety. This is evident from the latest edition of the Student Social Safety Monitor, which lacks data for the 2023-24 academic year. The survey – asking students about experiences with unwanted behavior such as physical violence, vandalism, verbal aggression, and discrimination on campus – was intentionally skipped that year.
The UvA conducts the Student Social Safety Monitor annually among a sample of 8,000 students. The survey inventories which forms of unwanted behavior students experienced in the past academic year within the (digital) walls of the university.
The most recent version of the monitor shows an increase in various forms of unwanted behavior.
It is notable that the UvA did not conduct the monitor during the student protests, a period marked by significant concerns about student safety. Many Jewish students and staff reported feeling unsafe, troublemakers appeared in different locations, and demonstrators themselves expressed worries about police violence used to end the occupations.
“Comparable data”
According to a university spokesperson, the survey was deliberately skipped because of the protests: “The monitor was not conducted one year because otherwise we would have a measurement that is not properly comparable. We want to see whether policy has an effect. Due to last year’s protests occurring at the time the monitor is normally conducted, and their possible influence on the results, you could no longer say anything about the effect of the policy.”
Meeting records from 2024 show that the Executive Board (CvB) indeed decided not to conduct the monitor “due to the comparability of the data.” Following a “signal” from the Administrative Information department, the decision was later reconsidered, but the board ultimately maintained its earlier choice to skip the monitor that year.
Monitor 2024-25
The most recent monitor, covering the 2024-25 academic year and released at the end of November, shows that several forms of experienced unwanted behavior increased compared with the previous measurement.
In a response from the administration, the CvB notes that the demonstrations during the academic year 2024-25 were “often mentioned by respondents as a reason for a feeling of insecurity.” According to the Executive Board, this also emerged in conversations with students.
