As part of UMBC’s ongoing commitment to fostering equitable and inclusive learning and working environments, we are pleased to share training opportunities designed to strengthen inclusive practices and support meaningful engagement across our campus community. These offerings include virtual courses available through Vector Solutions, along with in-person sessions facilitated by partners in the Division of Institutional Equity (DOIE).
Faculty, staff, supervisors, and campus partners are encouraged to participate. For questions or enrollment support, please submit a request form here or email culture@umbc.edu.
Virtual Training Options
Becoming an Ally: Part 1
This course introduces the foundations of allyship and provides participants with tools to begin practicing allyship in personal and professional settings. Topics include defining allyship, approaches to becoming an ally, strategies for self-education, and ways to recognize unfairness and advantage.
Becoming an Ally: Part 2
This course builds on Part 1 by focusing on translating values into action. Participants will examine effective and ineffective allyship and explore strategies for sustaining ongoing allyship efforts.
Diversity Competent Mentoring: Developmental Networks
This course helps mentors understand how developmental networks support mentees in navigating workplace expectations while honoring their identities. Participants will explore boundary-setting, goal development, and the importance of valuing unheard perspectives and distinctive skills.
Diversity Competent Mentoring: Relational Mentoring
This course focuses on building authentic mentoring relationships that support mentee success without requiring identity compromise. Participants will explore relational mentoring strategies and approaches for fostering inclusion through connection.
Diversity Competent Mentoring: Combating Bias as a Mentor
This course examines common harmful behaviors and preconceptions experienced by individuals from underrepresented groups. Participants will learn practical strategies for addressing bias and reducing its impact in academic and professional environments.
In-Person Training Options
Building Inclusive Departmental Cultures
Available Facilitators: Jasmine A. Lee, Associate Vice President for Community & Culture/Co-Director of Social Justice Dialogue, Ciara R. Christian, Co-Director of the Center for Social Justice Dialogue, and Sy Simms, Learning and Development Specialist.
Building Inclusive Departmental Cultures is a general workshop and tailored in-person training session designed to equip participants with the knowledge, language, and practical tools needed to cultivate environments where every member of a department can thrive. Drawing from theory, lived experience, and real-world scenarios, the training explores how identity, systemic dynamics, and everyday practices shape the culture, climate, and relational health of academic and professional departments. Grounded in frameworks for equity-centered organizational change, this training integrates education and storytelling to encourage participants to examine the cultures already present in their departments. Additionally, it invites participants to recognize how unexamined assumptions, exclusionary norms, and gaps in awareness can influence team dynamics, decision-making, hiring and retention, policies, and the overall sense of belonging within a unit. The session emphasizes accountability, courageous self-reflection, and the importance of intentional, sustained action in building cultures where all people feel valued and included.
During this session, participants will:
- Learn and define key terms connected to inclusion, equity, organizational culture, and belonging in higher education contexts.
- Explore how departmental culture is shaped, reinforced, and changed through daily interactions, norms, structures, and leadership practices.
- Examine the role that identity and positionality play in how individuals experience departmental culture differently.
- Reflect on personal assumptions, blind spots, and areas of growth related to their own contributions to departmental climate.
- Identify common barriers to inclusion that emerge in academic departments, including microaggressions, gatekeeping, and cultural homogeneity.
- Engage in interactive activities and dialogue to practice inclusive communication and collaborative problem-solving.
- Discuss concrete strategies for building and sustaining departmental cultures that center equity, access, and belonging.
Example Learning Outcomes: By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
- Demonstrate increased awareness of how departmental culture is constructed and how it differentially impacts members across identities and roles.
- Interrogate their own positionality and assumptions, including how their behaviors and decisions contribute to or detract from an inclusive departmental climate.
- Apply practical strategies and best practices for fostering equitable norms, policies, and relational practices within their department.
- Commit to continued learning and action in order to build and sustain departmental cultures where all members experience genuine inclusion and belonging.
Dialogue Practices for Building Departmental Belonging
Available Facilitators: Jasmine A. Lee, Associate Vice President for Community & Culture/Co-Director of the Center for Social Justice Dialogue, Ciara R. Christian, Co-Director of the Center for Social Justice Dialogue, Wendy Low, Coordinator, Center for Social Justice Dialogue
Dialogue Practices for Building Departmental Belonging is a hands-on workshop designed to equip participants with concrete skills for engaging across differences and fostering genuine belonging within their departments. Through a blend of facilitated practice, real-world scenarios, and reflective exercises, participants will develop practical fluency in the dialogue behaviors that most directly shape whether colleagues feel seen, heard, and valued, including active listening, naming assumptions, navigating difficult conversations, and communicating with intentional vulnerability. Grounded in established dialogue facilitation and relational practice frameworks, the session moves participants from awareness to action: identifying specific habits that undermine trust and connection, and replacing them with practiced, repeatable skills for more authentic engagement. Participants leave with a personal toolkit of dialogue strategies they can apply immediately in departmental interactions in one-on-one conversations, team meetings, or moments of conflict and repair.
During this session, participants will:
- Learn and define key terms connected to dialogue, relational communication, active listening, and belonging in organizational and academic settings.
- Explore the distinction between dialogue and debate, and examine how different communication habits shape the culture and relational health of a department.
- Engage in personal reflection and storytelling to examine their own experiences of belonging and exclusion in professional communities.
- Reflect on personal communication patterns, biases, and tendencies that may either open or close space for authentic connection across difference.
- Examine common communication breakdowns and relational ruptures that occur in departmental settings and how they impact belonging.
- Practice core dialogue skills—including deep listening, inquiry, and perspective-taking—through structured interactive activities.
- Discuss strategies for facilitating and sustaining dialogue practices that foster trust, psychological safety, and a culture of belonging within their department.
Example Learning Outcomes: By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
- Demonstrate increased knowledge and skill in the use of dialogue practices that support authentic connection, trust-building, and belonging across differences in departmental settings.
- Interrogate their own communication patterns and relational habits, including the ways in which they may unintentionally close space for others to feel heard and valued.
- Apply practical dialogue strategies and facilitation tools to navigate difficult conversations, bridge differences, and strengthen departmental relationships.
- Commit to continued learning and practice in order to cultivate departmental communities grounded in genuine belonging, mutual respect, and relational accountability.
Learn More & Get Involved
We encourage all campus partners to take advantage of these opportunities to strengthen our shared culture of equity and belonging.
For questions about registering, scheduling, or determining the best session for your role, please visit culture.umbc.edu or contact the Community & Culture team at culture@umbc.edu.