The results are in: Penn State’s Values and Culture Survey is still a waste of time and money five years later.

The first iteration of this disappointment, conversely entitled the Cultures and Values Survey, was released in 2013. And they somehow decided to do it again, of course for an undisclosed fee from Penn State’s general fund.

Here’s what Penn State learned from this year’s survey:

Your connection with Penn State remains strong.

Insightful.

All it takes is a stroll through campus to understand why this is home for so many of us. Take a look at the tailgate lots on any given fall Saturday, and you’ll see this connection continues long past graduation. Step into the HUB during the first week of classes, and you’ll feel the excitement no one can quite explain. Stand for 46 hours alongside 15,000 other volunteers in the fight against pediatric cancer. Hell, we’ll even show up for Penn State basketball. If that’s not a strong connection, I don’t know what is.

Did we really need a survey to tell us that students, faculty, and staff are connected to the university?

Awareness of the Penn State Values has grown.

I will personally treat to coffee the first undergrad who can name all six Penn State values without looking them up. (Editor’s note: Cody Heaton, you’re exempt.) The only reason anyone is aware of these values is because of how often the university shoves them down our throats. But shouting six words at a bunch of 18-year-olds isn’t what make Penn State, well, Penn State.

You might not understand integrity until someone questions your values because of a scandal that happened years before you ever considered attending Penn State.

You might not understand responsibility until you realize the standard generations of Penn Staters have created for you to uphold.

You might not understand discovery until you take a class where you’re excited to learn instead of just going through the motions.

You might not understand excellence until you find the place on campus where you truly feel like you can make a difference.

You might not understand community until the first time you say “home” and refer to State College instead of your hometown.

You might not understand respect until you stand outside Old Main holding a candle to honor a student who passed away.

But maybe you won’t understand Penn State’s culture and values until you read a summary of survey results on the university’s newswire. Just a thought.

Recognition of resources and support for reporting wrongdoing has increased.

To Penn State’s credit, resource awareness increased significantly for faculty and staff, who were required to complete annual compliance training. But I’m not convinced the university needed a fancy survey to figure out instituting these trainings would lead to more people knowing these resources exist.

Even though the community is apparently more aware of these resources, 48 percent of faculty and staff members who said they observed sexual harassment, sexual misconduct or relationship violence didn’t report it. Similarly, 59 percent of staff and 60 percent of faculty who observed an act of bias or discrimination did not report it. What good does it do to be aware of the resources if you’re still not using them?

There is a greater willingness among community members to report misconduct.

Bear with me here, but I’d like to attribute this conclusion to the students who’ve lent strength and support to lead these efforts. Programs like Stand for State could never have grown to this magnitude without student leaders as the wind beneath their wings, no matter how much the university would like to take credit for a cultural shift on campus.

This change also corresponds with changes in the national sentiment around sexual misconduct over the past five years. For heaven’s sake, #MeToo founder Tarana Burke spoke on campus last semester. And our university still needs an official survey to figure this out.

Nevermind the bullshit results; let’s talk about the survey itself. Only 12.2 percent of the Penn State community even bothered to fill out the survey at all. To that end, only 6.5 percent of undergraduates cared to humor the university by starting the survey.

But wait, there’s more! The undergraduate response rate for the majority of the survey is “closer to 5.2” percent. To all those who started the survey and quickly thereafter concluded that it was ridiculous, we salute you.

I think my predecessor Kevin Horne said it best:

“I know that the real Penn State culture lives in my heart and in the collective hearts of my fellow students, and in the hearts of the alumni and educators who came before me.

“Not on your overpriced piece of paper.”