A few randomly selected Penn State students, faculty, and staff will receive an email request to complete an online pilot culture survey about ethics and values so that Penn State can create an “aspirational document representing the type of university we want to be,” according to Penn State’s Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer, Regis Becker.

The survey is a response to a recommendation from the Freeh Report which suggested that the University analyze the #culture and values of the Penn State community.

The current Penn State ethics and compliance statement is listed in Penn State’s Principles, however the document only really applies to students. By conducting the survey, Penn State hopes to learn the University’s shared values, identify ethics issues, and gauge how likely stakeholders are to report a suspected wrongdoing, said  Becker. The end goal is to create an all-encompassing document relevant to all Penn State students, faculty, staff, and technical service employees, that represents the values and ethics of the Penn State community.

The pilot program will be sent out to a few hundred Penn Staters through the end of summer, and the full survey will be sent out to all Penn State staff, students and faculty by October 1, 2013.

The survey will be run through Ethics Resource Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to studying and improving ethical standards in private and public institutions. Through the Ethics Resource Center’s online survey, all identity information submitted by participants will be confidential.

President Rodney Erickson will be sending out an email to all students, faculty, and staff encouraging everyone to participate.

With the information gathered from the survey, the Penn State Ethics and Compliance Committee hopes to release their first report in December 2013. From there, the report will wait until it is approved by IRB.