Title IX training is once again underway at Missouri Southern as University administrators work with legal firm Husch Blackwell to revamp their efforts and educate all students, faculty and staff on campus.

According to Darren Fullerton, vice president of student affairs, Husch Blackwell is currently working to combine the training programs for faculty and staff members.

“Last year was the first year for all this, so we actually had a faculty training module and a staff training module,” said Fullerton. “They’re combining those two to make it more user friendly.”

Southern began extensively training the campus community during the fall 2014 and spring 2015 semesters, which saw a total of 17 faculty and staff members trained as Title IX investigators, as well as a 45 minute standardized Title IX training video uploaded to Blackboard for all Southern students to view. Husch Blackwell is also looking to improve student Title IX training this year.

“The student training we’re really going to have to look at this year because we’re obligated federally to get that out.”

Despite having already trained most of the campus community, Southern is continuing with the effort in order to keep up to date with the policy. This training is expected to become an annual thing, says Fullerton.

“The rules keep changing at the federal level,” said Fullerton, “so we want to make sure we’re really getting the information out to the students and the students have the information that they need to be up to speed on Title IX and feel safe on campus.”