Michigan State University
EN-9: Staff Professional Development

"MSU Offers a wide variety of professional development and training opportunities, many of which cover sustainability and aspects of sustainability. Brief descriptions of these programs are listed below. Academic Achievement Network (AAN): AAN offers professional development opportunities to all rank, appointment types, and career stages of academics at MSU. The AAN holds four Leadership Events every semester, called Conversations, that host a member of leadership at MSU. Every Conversation has over 300 attendees, totaling over 2,400 attendees overall throughout one academic year. The member of leadership who hosts a conversation discusses university priorities, development opportunities, and other events; Conversations are open to MSU faculty, deans, directors, chairs, executive managers, and staff supervisors, but are recorded and available for anyone to view through the AAN website. All conversations in the past two years have discussed sustainability, in professional development, campus improvements, planned and future developments, and university policy. AAN also hosts separate professional development for faculty of any department or level, and attendance at those programs totaled 3,102 in the 2017-2018 academic year; programs offered through AAN dive into time management and efficiencies, sexual harassment and Title IV response, difficult conversations, adapting to change, and idea sharing. www.aan.msu.edu Faculty and Academic staff are also offered development through AAN to expand their knowledge and encourage discussions between departments. These discussions are in the form of conversations and led dialogues facilitated by AAN. Different fellows and community dialogues are Cohorts, Learning Communities, Learning Opportunities, Individual Conversations, Teaching and Learning Spring Conference, and Resource for Teaching and Learning. And average of 100 people per session, and each session is recorded on a live-stream for those who cannot attend. AAN also co-sponsors a monthly forum at the Learning Hub on campus for faculty, which provides a place for the MSU community to share ideas, questions, innovations, and experiences around teaching and learning. https://aan.msu.edu/teaching-learning/ https://aan.msu.edu/leadership-development/leadership-institute/ https://tech.msu.edu/teaching/faculty-development/ Residential and Hospitality Services (RHS): RHS is one of MSU's largest divisions, and sustainability is written into the division's mission statements through its commitment to the values of spirit of partnership, effective communication, commitment to staff and guest experiences, and mindset of innovations. In addition, RHS also holds staff professional development that is heavily centered around sustainability. Annually, RHS holds Innovate State, which is required by all RHS staff to attend and covers new policies, updates, new sustainability practices and diversity training, and changes made in the dining and housing areas of campus that staff should be aware of. RHS Food Stores are also trained regularly on new sustainability purchasing practices. The Sustainability Officer in RHS presents every other year to discuss sustainability policies, procedures, and training for all staff at all levels, including students. Every semester, the same Sustainability Officer carries out individual staff sessions for different RHS departments to update them on sustainability practices and policies that are site-specific to those units. RHS also provides its staff with the opportunity to shadow the leaders in the division during a fellows program called the Center for Excellence  in Executive Leadership. This program is designed to grow members of staff in RHS in areas different than those they perform in to create well-rounded and communicative staff on all levels. The program is based on a shadowing and feedback process, where fellows (those leading) and the champions (those shadowing) create a dialogue for constant improvement and growth. Please see attached for further details. https://rhs.msu.edu/sustainability Infrastructure and Planning Facilities (IPF): IPF spans several areas of campus, and most IPF employees are educated in sustainability practices. Those who work at the Recycling Center and Surplus Store on campus all go through professional development as sustainability practices at the university change, and the recycling center employees, including all haul drivers, also receive professional development in this area. All staff in LEED certified buildings on campus go through workshops that teach them to follow sustainable office practices, and all new on-campus construction is to be built to LEED-certified levels. The MSU Custodial Services crew is trained in High-performance cleaning which focuses on sustainability, and these products change and develop regularly, required staff sustainability updates to keep the service as sustainable and efficient as possible. Additionally, the IPF Sustainability Officer is a member of the Business Leadership Council, which has held several panels and education events for staff on campus to improve departmental business performance and efficiency. http://ipf.msu.edu/green/practices/cleaning.html The Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives offers staff dialogues for employees at MSU to discuss diversity, challenging topics, and ways to cope with such issues on campus. These are open on a monthly basis to all faculty and staff at MSU: http://www.inclusion.msu.edu/education/intercultural-dialogue1.html MSU also has several online professional development resources, and hosts classes every week for employees to improve their work performance, learn new skills, and develop their expertise in the workplace. This includes the ElevateU program, which is offered to all MSU employees, as well as courses through the MSU's staff portal EBS, the SpartansLearn website, and more: https://www.hr.msu.edu/professional-development/support-staff/ "

"Every year, MSU hosts numerous speakers, workshops, conferences, and work development sessions from outside and external groups. Each college hosts different workshops for their students, faculty, and staff, and due to divisional separation and college separation within the university, this data is not consistently logged. MSU us constantly hosting visitors to develop its staff, students, faculty, and employees professionally, and many of those opportunities are in sustainability. To view different sustainability professional development opportunities, please view the various events calendar for the university: https://msu.edu/calendars.php"

"In RHS, sustainability is engrained in the divisional mission statement and values, and each employee's review features descriptions of these values and requires the employee to describe how their efforts in their work fulfill these values. In Infrastructure and Planning Facilities, the mission statements and values of the division echo MSU's land-grant goals of environmental stewardship, while also promising transparency, effective communication, and value in teamwork. IPF's employee reviews also prioritize their division's values, and the sustainability employees in the division are reviewed for their effectiveness in the area as well. " http://ipf.msu.edu/about/index.html