Arts and Sciences faculty receive anti-discrimination, harassment training

This fall, faculty and staff from the School of Arts and Sciences participated in mandatory discrimination and harassment prevention training.

The Office of Equal Opportunity holds this training to prepare faculty for approaching “all types of discrimination and harassment across all ‘protected categories’ of people” covered under Massachusetts law and the university’s non-discrimination policy, according to OEO Director & Title IX Coordinator Jill Zellmer.

The training will continue through the beginning of the new calendar year, Zellmer explained. Make-up sessions for Arts and Sciences faculty and staff will be held in January and February, she said.

She explained that each of the approximately 30 two-and-a-half-hour sessions informs employees of their legal obligations in the workplace related to discrimination and harassment prevention and aims to ensure that the employees respond appropriately when dealing with these issues.

These obligations include staff members’ responsibility to report incidents that they believe violate Tufts’ non-discrimination policy, Zellmer said.

“Most employees are ‘agents of the university,’ which means they are required by law to report incidents that may violate our non-discrimination policy, and one of the goals of the training is to make sure faculty and staff know this,” Zellmer said. “In addition, we want to make sure every faculty and staff member knows where and how to report a possible violation.”

She noted that violations can be reported either by contacting the OEO or by using the online reporting tool Ethicspoint.

According to Zellmer, the sessions cover information in MA GL 151B, a chapter of Massachusetts General Law on “Unlawful Discrimination Because of Race, Color, Religious Creed, National Origin, Ancestry or Sex,” along with information about university policies, definitions of sexual misconduct categories, protected category definitions from the non-discriminatory policy and information about the Americans with Disabilities Act and reasonable accommodation policy. 

Session facilitators also explained methods through which faculty can assist colleagues or students who disclose potential policy violations, such as making sure those individuals understand how to access resources and support services, Zellmer added. 

Zellmer explained that the university began training its staff in 2012, following the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination recommendation that employees attend discrimination and harassment prevention training once every two to three years.

The 2012 sessions began at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine on the Grafton campus, with 93 percent of staff and faculty in attendance, she noted. The OEO has since been training the rest of the faculty and staff at the university.

The School of Engineering had a 94 percent turnout during the last school year, and after the Arts & Sciences staff are trained, OEO will move onto training other central university departments such as Tufts Technology Services.

Alexandra Donovan, the OEO’s sexual misconduct prevention specialist, noted that while the trainings focus on all areas of discrimination -- rather than on only sexual discrimination -- the information passed on is key to making faculty more responsive to and responsible for sexual abuse.

“At the basic level, my goal as a prevention specialist is to educate as many people as possible about sexual misconduct,” Donovan told the Daily in an email. “The more people that recognize the signs and know how to respond the better ... We can’t just focus on one group and ignore the other. It will take all of us to make changes, not just one group. Having faculty and staff updated on policy, resources and procedures is very important. Knowledge of the subject and what will be expected of them if a student discloses is an incident of discrimination how we build trust within the community.”

Donovan explained that educating faculty and staff is significant because they usually remain on campus longer than individual students do and can “reinforce our community goals.”

“If staff can integrate bystander activities into class lectures, if faculty can recommend sexual assault prevention projects or readings [and] if faculty post supportive messaging or postering in their office or a mentor talks about their personal commitment to this issue -- all of these communicate our community goals and can have a profound effect on our campus,” Donovan said.