The Texas State Faculty Senate presented its feedback on the university’s latest diversity training initiative and provided suggestions for future training courses at its Feb. 9 meeting.
The Senate met with Assistant Vice President of Human Resources Carole Clerie and Assistant Vice President for Institutional Compliance and Chief Compliance Officer Bobby Mason to provide their feedback on the university’s latest training course.
Within the past year, the university’s human resources department implemented a learning management system that allows it to track training completion. Through the system, the department also presents course material that is required for employees to complete.
The first course, the preventing harassment and discrimination course, was issued on Jan. 31. Since then, over 1,000 employees have completed the course according to Mason.
Unlike previous course material, Mason said the new learning management system is more accommodating and accessible to employees.
“We actually worked with some individuals on our campus who have individual challenges and things and asked them to help us review the course prior to rolling it out, just to ensure that they weren’t going to have any issues completing the course,” Mason said.
Additional courses will roll out throughout the spring semester. Clerie and Mason met with Faculty Senate for feedback on the initial course and to discuss improvement opportunities for future courses.
Sen. Chair Lynn Ledbetter said she appreciated how scenarios featured in the course were acted out. Additionally, she found the resources presented throughout the course to be helpful and enjoyed the option of being able to backtrack and see how other solutions would be played out if selected.
“That seemed like that was already a significant tweak from what we’ve had before,” Ledbetter said.
The learning management system will also implement additional courses such as “Tools of an Ethical Workplace.” Mason said the course focuses on how employees can make ethical decisions in the workplace. The third course employees will be required to complete deals with information security reports.
On Tuesday, Faculty Senate will present “Who Fixes Broken Systems? Undoing Legacies of Exclusion in Colleges and Universities” from 4-6 p.m. via Zoom with Sirry Alang, an associate professor of sociology and health, medicine and society at Lehigh University. The presentation is open to other faculty senate members within the Texas State University system. Registration is required. 
Alang will also attend the Senate’s next meeting on Wednesday where they will discuss racism in the academic community and strategies on how to deal with racism in academic settings.
For more information about Faculty Senate visit its website.