Dear Illinois Tech Community Members,
We are pleased to share that we’re continuing our partnership with The Nova Collective to help further our community’s growth on our diversity, equity, and inclusion journey! As indicated as a need in previous community surveys, we are committed to laying the foundation needed to improve the sense of belonging and strengthening the culture of inclusion at Illinois Tech by furthering our DEI learning together.
Beginning in May of 2024, training modules were moved to Canvas. New faculty and staff are added each month on or around the 15th of the month and receive an invitation to begin their training at that time. Once added, new faculty and staff have four months to complete the 10 e-learning modules.
The modules vary in length, each taking anywhere from 10-15 minutes to complete.
The module topics are as follows:
- What is Diversity? What is Inclusion?
A foundational topic that “myth-busts” misconceptions and uncovers what diversity and inclusion can mean for individuals within your organization. - The Impact of Diversity and Inclusion
To build champions for DEI, everyone needs to understand its impact. This topic provides a framework for how to discover and define how anyone can have an impact on inclusion and belonging within your organization and to engage with the goals that you’re collectively working toward. - Race and Ethnicity
The ability to navigate multicultural relationships at work is a vital skill. This topic builds competency around how race and ethnicity show up in the workplace. This will also help build skills in recognizing and mitigating bias and microaggressions. - Multigenerational Workforce
The generational landscape of the office is quickly transforming. This module dives into the strengths of different generations, and leads to discoveries on how to harness the power of the total workforce. - Gender Dynamics
This topic will help your workforce develop awareness around gender dynamics and will expand beyond the gender binary to topics such as partner leave, remote work flexibility, evaluating office dress code norms, evaluating facilities accommodations for parents, providing equal airtime to people of all gender identities in meetings, and awareness of assumptions around task delegation. - Ability
Understanding the spectrum of cognitive, physical, sensory, developmental, and mental health abilities is a crucial step toward inclusivity. Educate your employees on how different abilities might show up in the workplace, and how to understand and challenge ableist norms. - Bias
This topic sets the table for employees to unpack the concepts underneath bias. This topic also helps learners process the idea of unconscious bias so that they can move past acknowledging bias and into real behavioral change. - LGBTQ+
This module provides a baseline for understanding the LGBTQIA+ experience and provides tools to challenge assumptions around hetero-normative standards and behaviors at work. - Microaggressions
Provide your employees with an awareness of what microaggressions are and why and how they impact both teams and individuals. This module will help introduce your workforce to different types of microaggressions and guide them through the behaviors and consequences of how they show up at work. - Global Cultural Awareness
Global cultural awareness is an understanding of practices and values of other cultures that enables employees to work more effectively on global teams and helps provide tools for your teams so that they can practice global cultural competence in all areas of your business.
After completing all 10 e-learning modules, you will receive a brief confidential survey to share your thoughts and opinions about the e-learning modules and our DEI learning journey so far. Your feedback and engagement in this work are important to us. Keep in mind, unless you choose to provide your name or other personal information, your responses will be completely anonymous. The survey should take no more than five minutes to complete.
We look forward to furthering our learning commitment toward diversity, equity, and inclusion, which will help us continue to build a more just and equitable culture at Illinois Tech.
We appreciate your engagement and compliance with completing all 10 modules as soon as possible once you receive your invitation and no later than four months after you are added. Please note that we will be sending out regular reminders for this important training.
Thank you for your participation!
Amit Thomas
Interim Vice President, Human Resources and Talent Management