DEI Training and Workshops
Butler University offers a variety of training and workshops to equip campus members with knowledge about DEI-related topics and skills to create more inclusive, safe, and equitable classrooms, living spaces, workplaces, and communities. There are many forms of training and workshops at Butler including by-request workshops and peer-to-peer education.
By-Request Workshops
By-request workshops allow Butler community members to request a specific workshop to be presented to your classroom, student organization, or department. Below you will find a list of workshop topics and how to request one today!
The Diversity’s Center workshops are primarily led by students allowing them to engage in peer-to-peer education. These workshops are open to all and 90 minutes long.
Topics include:
- Building Allyship in College Communities: Encouraging active support for underrepresented groups and promoting allyship across campus.
- Intersectionality and Identity: Exploring how overlapping social identities (race, gender, sexuality, class) contribute to unique experiences of discrimination and privilege.
- Microaggressions: Impact and Response: Understanding the harm of subtle, often unintentional, discriminatory remarks and how to address them.
- Neurodiversity in the Classroom: Promoting awareness and inclusion of neurodiverse students (e.g., students with autism, ADHD) and creating supportive learning environments.
- Race and Privilege in Education: Examining the role of race in educational access, achievement gaps, and structural privilege.
- Supporting Students with Disabilities (visible and invisible) /Challenging Ableism: Highlighting the challenges faced by students with disabilities that aren’t always visible, such as mental health conditions, chronic illnesses, or learning disabilities. Understanding disability as an essential aspect of diversity and addressing the biases and barriers that students with disabilities face in higher education
- First-Generation and Low-Income Students: Navigating Higher Education: Challenges and strategies for supporting first-gen and low-income students in college environments.
You can also request a unique workshop to fit your group’s needs. Contact Mikala Lain (mlain@butler.edu) to request an existing or unique workshop. Visit the Diversity Center’s webpage to learn more.
These workshops are primarily for faculty and staff, however, all trainings can be customized to the desired audience (students, community members, faculty, staff). All of the workshops are led by members of the Student Disability Services staff team.
You can request any of the following topics:
- What is SDS? (SDS 101)
- What is Neurodiversity?
- What are best practices for working with neurodivergent students?
- The Attendance Accommodation
- Exam Accommodations and SDS Proctoring
- Disability Etiquette/Disability Language
- Supporting Students with Autism
- Advising Students with Disabilities
- Making Events Accessible
- Disclosure of disability in the workplace
- The difference between College and High school- helping prepare for the transition
- Disability Ally Training
Please contact the SDS office at sds@butler.edu to request a workshop today! You can learn more about SDS and their mission by visiting their webpage.
The Office of Student Advocacy provides skill-building workshops to assist students, staff, and faculty in their advocacy efforts. The workshops are facilitated by staff and are 60 minutes long unless stated otherwise.
For students:
- How to Be a Boundaries Badass:
Students will learn and practice a variety of skills related to understanding the importance of creating and practicing healthy boundaries in all of their relationships, whether platonic, familial, or romantic. - Hack Your Nervous System: Understanding Your Own Stress Response: Students will learn about how stress affects the brain and body in order to better understand how to regulate their own nervous system, as well as develop awareness of on campus mental health resources
- BUpstanding:
Students will learn ways to recognize and overcome their personal barrier to intervening by utilizing simple and effective tools to step in and help another person in a variety of situations. This presentation can also be tailored to fit specific topics, such as sexual violence or relationship violence. - How to Help a Friend: This workshop includes training on how to recognize when someone has experienced a trauma and needs assistance, how to assist them in a trauma-informed and supportive manner, and educates students about the resources available to help on and off campus.
- Fight, Flight, Freeze: The Neurobiology of Trauma: This workshop examines the physiological response to trauma within the body and what it means for the physical and emotional body of survivors. By understanding what’s going on “behind the scenes,” we can better understand how to help support survivors of trauma.
- Changemakers: A Crash Course in Social Advocacy & Activism: Students will discover the difference between advocacy and activism, as well as discuss how they can apply advocacy and activism skills to the causes about which they are most passionate to affect positive change in their communities.Green Dot Overview for Students (60 minutes): In this 60-minute training, students will learn basic intervention skills. Through interactive activities and practice, participants are equipped with the tools to help prevent violence from happening in their community.
- Full Bystander Training for Students (3 hours): In this training, students who have been identified as influential on campus will learn advanced skills to intervene in high-risk situations and establish intolerance of violence as a campus norm. Through in-depth education, awareness and skills practice, participants are equipped to not only react and intervene in high-risk situations, but also to use their social influence to reduce interpersonal violence at Charlotte.
- Green Dot Student Overview: In this 60-minute training, students will learn basic intervention skills. Through interactive activities and practice, participants are equipped with the tools to help prevent violence from happening in their community.
For faculty and staff:
- Green Dot Overview for Faculty and Staff: In this training, participants will learn basic skills to intervene in high-risk situations by identifying warning signs, personal and social barriers to intervention, and safe and effective intervention options. Through education, awareness and skills practice, Green Dot participants are equipped to react and intervene in high-risk situations resulting in the ultimate reduction of interpersonal violence in our community.
Contact Jules Grable to request an existing or tailored workshop (jearthur@butler.edu)! Learn more about their workshops and the Green Dot Initiative by visiting their webpage.