Training and Professional Development for DU Community Members

Institute baseline, mandatory training and continued professional development for administration, faculty, staff, and students.

Action Item Details

The University of Denver has the opportunity to be known for giving all of its members the skills to engage in diversity, equity, and inclusion work. The development of these skills is central to improving our culture. During the 2020-2021 academic year, we will continue to grow trainings and professional development tailored to the unique needs and perspectives of the DU community. They include: 

• Chancellor’s Cabinet, deans and associate deans: All leadership will complete the FIIT inclusive teaching practices training modules. 
• Faculty: All existing and incoming DU faculty, including adjuncts, are required to complete the Everfi modules on harassment, diversity, equity, and inclusion and implicit bias. Launching in fall 2020, DU faculty are also required to take the inclusive teaching practices training modules through the DU-created Faculty Institute for Inclusive Teaching (FIIT). There will also be opportunities for further professional development offered regularly through FIIT throughout the winter and spring quarters. 
  • Grow the Office of Teaching and Learning’s ability to center DU as the premier institution in the United States in the creation, delivery, and assessment of inclusive pedagogy.  
• Administrators and staff: All existing and incoming administrators and staff are required to complete the Everfi modules on harassment, diversity, equity, and inclusion and implicit bias.  Explore other training to further grow competencies in diversity, equity, and inclusion. 
• Students: All incoming undergraduate students are required to complete the Everfi module on diversity, equity, and inclusion, including introducing concepts of identity, stereotypes, bias, power, privilege, oppression, microaggressions, allyship, and more. Students are also required to complete this module as part of their Discoveries Orientation experience. Resident Assistants (RAs) and Discoveries Leaders (DLs) will also complete this module. Going forward, DU could open this up to all undergraduate and graduate students this year.

Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI)

Explore a framework for the implementation of the IDI, the only theory-based assessment of intercultural competence that allows individuals and leaders in organizations to see a personal, as well as institutional, progression and growth. The IDI will give DU the ability to create a professional and personal development baseline and development plan for staff and faculty.