Here on the Forty Acres, we value diverse people, ideas and scholarship. Our diversity makes UT Austin a fascinating place to work. With nearly 52,000 students and more than 15,000 employees, our campus is a hub for ideas and research that make a difference around the world.
As employees in this dynamic, diverse environment, it is helpful to understand the perspectives of colleagues and students from different cultures and backgrounds, with differing abilities and viewpoints. That same understanding is useful in hiring and recruiting and getting the most from your work relationships.
The Division of Diversity and Community Engagement and Human Resources have collaborated to offer a Diversity Education Certificate through UT Learn Courses. UT Austin employees will be able to learn more about managing diverse teams and working with students, staff and faculty from all backgrounds as well as how campus climate, Title IX, and implicit bias can affect our culture at work.
Join us for one or two or all of the courses listed below. Most will be offered at least twice during the academic year. See all DDCE courses at UT Learn by logging in with UT EID.
Introduction to Managing Diversity
Vice President of Diversity and Community Engagement will teach managers/leaders how to effectively manage a diverse workforce and how to create an environment of openness, transparency and dialogue in today’s national and local climate.
Instructor: Dr. Leonard Moore
Duration: 2 hours
Registration: UT Learn (login w UT EID)
Strategies for an Equitable Workplace
This diversity and inclusion course uses the unique experiences of real people to explore key concepts such as identity, bias, privilege, and communication. By gaining a better appreciation for our shared experiences of difference, our shared expectations of respect, and our shared need to belong and feel appreciated, employees are encouraged to identify how they can create more respectful and inclusive workplaces.
Instructors: Marquita Booker, William Nutt, Galen Eagle Bull
Duration: 2 hours
Registration: UT Learn (login w UT EID)
Campus Climate (It ain’t the weather.)
Campus climate is not about the weather, though it is about our campus environment and in some ways, it serves as a temperature check regarding experiences within our university community. Considering demographics, and beyond, campus climate is the reflection and manifestation of diversity on campus. In this interactive session, participants will learn about the key elements of campus climate and how an inclusive campus climate can result in enhanced developmental outcomes for students, staff, and faculty.
Instructor: Dr. Betty Jeanne Taylor
Learning Objectives: Identify key elements that shape a university’s campus climate; Recognize bias incidents that can negatively impact individual/group experiences and overall campus climate; Gain insight into own responsibility and role in developing an inclusive campus climate.
Duration: 2 hours
Registration: UT Learn (login w UT EID)
Recognizing and Interrupting Implicit Bias in the Workplace
Workplace bias is not a new phenomenon. We all have biases. When influenced by implicit or unconscious bias, decisions made at work can have major impacts on every aspect of our organizations, from whom we hire and promote to whose emails we respond to and whom we mentor, for example. Biases threaten our organizational culture and diversity, which can impact our organizational health and effectiveness long term.
Instructors: Binta Brown
Learning Objectives: In this 90-minute training, through instruction, interactive exercises and discussion, you will learn:
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- What is implicit bias
- Why it matters to understand its impact
- How to take actionable steps to recognize and interrupt these biases.
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Duration: 2 hours
Registration: UT Learn (login w UT EID)
Title IX Basics for Supervisors OR Title IX Basics for Supervisees
Dive into a comprehensive overview of Title IX at UT Austin. We will discuss Title IX, UT Austin’s sex discrimination policy, mandatory reporting duties for employees, strategies for prevention, interventions, and support available for Title IX related incidents. Interactive boundaries exercises and case scenarios will help us to apply this knowledge to situations we may face in the workplace and classroom. Basics for Supervisors tailors content to help cultivate positive leadership skills and our Basics for Supervisees is tailored to how supervisees can help create a positive supportive workplace culture.
Instructor: Brelynn Thomas
Duration: 2 hours
Registration:
Access and Inclusion – Disability in Context and the Workplace
This course is designed to familiarize participants with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and provide them with the knowledge, tools, and skills to work more effectively and confidently with people with disabilities. The first part of the course will focus on developing a foundational understanding of disability and accessibility; the second half will focus more on disability in the workplace and reasonable accommodations. The course is designed to facilitate open conversation and provide an engaging learning environment through interactive activities, case examples, and discussion.
Instructors: Dr. Jennifer Maedgen, Stephanie Myers, Kelli Bradley, Emily Shyrock
Duration: 3 hours
Registration: UT Learn (login w UT EID)
LGBTQIA+ 101: Definitions & Concepts OR Allyship Toolkit Part 1
In this intersectional workshop, learn and practice a series of vocabulary tools for your knowledge of LGBTQIA+ people in classrooms, offices, and conversations. Learn and practice describing the differences between sexual orientation, assigned sex, gender identity, gender expression, and romantic orientation; you will reflect on your own identities. Practice identifying – and enacting bystander intervention in – microaggressions around sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and romantic orientation. Set your intention for inclusive language (including pronouns) for your communities and learn about existing and necessary campus resources for LGBTQIA+ people.
Instructor: Quỳnh-Hương Nguyen
Duration: 2 hours
Registration:
Identifying and Interrupting Sexism in Classrooms and Workplaces
Workshop participants will learn about and practice identifying how sexism affects each of us and how to interrupt sexism. We will discuss what sexism is, how—in large and small ways—it diminishes women’s and femme people’s quality of life, and how different women and femme people experience sexism differently. We will talk about how sexism affects people of all genders through social expectations about gender roles and gender expression. This interactive workshop also engages participants in describing how racism, homophobia, and transphobia, and other forms of discrimination amplify and are interconnected with sexism, and then offers practice interrupting moments of intersectional sexism in your daily life.
Instructor: Liz Elsen, Shavonne Coleman
Duration: 2 hours
Registration: UT Learn (login w UT EID)
Race and Racism in the U.S.: Our Legacy
This course will cover the origins and continued functioning of our unique racial identities in the structural inequities of our nation’s past and present.
Instructor: Dr. Ted Gordon
Duration: 2 hours
Registration: UT Learn (login w UT EID)
Community Engagement Beyond the 40 Acres: Become an Active Citizen
As the public flagship of Texas, UT-Austin is called upon to undertake public service and to create mutually beneficial relationships with the communities around it. The course will enable students to better understand the ways that they might engage with the communities around the campus and to commit to being an active citizen regardless of their job context or role. This course provides an overview of the history of community engagement in the university setting, as well as a focus on the historic relationship between UT-Austin and the city around the campus.
Instructors: Amory Krueger, Anabella Tarango, Dr. Suchitra Gururaj
Duration: 2 hours
Registration: UT Learn (login w UT EID)
Mental Health in the Workplace
This course will concentrate on the issues and key components integral to creating and maintaining a mentally healthy work environment. We will explore what employees bring with them to the workplace and what the workplace does to employees from a mental health perspective.
Instructors: Dr. Octavio Martinez and Dr. Ryan Sutton
Duration: 2 hours
Registration: UT Learn (login w UT EID)