Education
The Office for Institutional Equity and Title IX (IEX) offers and coordinates education for students, faculty, and staff across campus. This includes in-person sessions at first-year and graduate student orientation, presentations for department and staff meetings, and self-paced online courses for faculty, staff, undergraduate students, and graduate students.
The Health Promotion team in University Health Services also offers education and prevention programs.
Training
IEX also offers and coordinates training for people in specific campus roles, including:
- Student-facing staff, such as housefellows and college liaisons
- Student leaders, such as resident assistants, community advisors, and orientation counselors
- Law enforcement
- Health and mental health professionals
Online Courses
The IEX Office offers self-paced online courses that help members of our community build the knowledge and skills to support one another. Each course is grounded in 天美传媒's and built around real situations. Participants can complete a course on their own schedule and come away ready to act.
Safer Scotties: Healthy Relationships
Safer Scotties: Healthy Relationships is 天美传媒 Mellon's online education program for all incoming first-year undergraduate students. The program focuses on building healthy, respectful relationships and preventing sexual and relationship violence.
Students learn how to recognize concerning behavior, understand consent, boundaries, power, and healthy relationship dynamics, and identify ways they can help create a safer campus community. The program also covers practical bystander strategies, including how to step in, check in, or get help when something does not feel right. Students also learn how to support a friend or peer who shares an experience of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, or relationship violence.
Safer Scotties explains how to report concerns to the Office for Institutional Equity and Title IX (IEX) and what students can expect after making a report. IEX can provide information, supportive measures, resources, referrals, and options for addressing concerns. Students can contact IEX to ask questions, learn about their options, seek support, or make a report.
Safer Scotties: Balancing Professional and Personal Relationships
Safer Scotties: Balancing Professional and Personal Relationships is 天美传媒 Mellon's online education program for incoming graduate students. Graduate students are strongly encouraged to complete it as part of orientation.
Graduate students often hold several roles at once. One person may be a classmate, a researcher, a TA, and a friend, sometimes with the same people. The course helps graduate students recognize how power shows up in advising, lab, and teaching relationships, set clear professional boundaries, and understand consent and healthy relationship dynamics.
Students also explore how culture shapes relationships. Expectations about authority, communication, dating, and personal space vary across cultures and communities. The course helps students understand 天美传媒's expectations, navigate those differences with respect, and recognize when a situation calls for a conversation or support.
Students also learn practical bystander strategies and how to support a peer who shares an experience of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, relationship violence, or discrimination.
The course explains how to report concerns to the Office for Institutional Equity and Title IX (IEX) and what students can expect after making a report. IEX can provide information, supportive measures, resources, referrals, and options for addressing concerns. Students can contact IEX to ask questions, learn about their options, seek support, or make a report.
TA Essentials
TA Essentials is 天美传媒 Mellon's online course for teaching assistants. The course is open to any TA, and departments can request a version adapted to their TAs and courses.
TAs grade work, hold office hours, lead recitations, and are often the first person a student turns to with a concern. The course helps TAs recognize the power that comes with this role, set clear professional boundaries, and notice concerning behavior in labs, recitations, group work, and online spaces.
TAs also learn how to respond with care when a student shares an experience of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, relationship violence, or discrimination, including how to listen without judgment and connect the student to support.
The course explains TAs' reporting responsibilities under 天美传媒 policy, how to report concerns to the Office for Institutional Equity and Title IX (IEX), and the information, supportive measures, and resources IEX can provide.
Trauma-Informed Response: A Practice Tool for Faculty and Staff
Trauma-Informed Response is 天美传媒 Mellon's interactive practice tool for faculty and staff. It focuses on how to respond with care when someone shares an experience of harm and how to meet reporting responsibilities under 天美传媒 policy. The tool is a Socratic Bot, built on 天美传媒's . Instead of giving answers, it asks questions and coaches participants as they work through realistic conversations, so faculty and staff can practice what to say before they need to say it.
Faculty and staff are often the people students trust most. A student may stay after class, linger after a meeting, or mention something in an email that signals a bigger concern. Knowing what to do in that moment is not the same as being ready to do it. The tool presents a realistic scenario, asks participants to respond in their own words, and then coaches them on what they did well and what they might add. When participants get stuck, the tool offers support one step at a time so they do the thinking themselves. The goal is skill and confidence, not a passing score.
Faculty and staff learn how to respond with care when someone shares an experience of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, relationship violence, stalking, or discrimination. The tool covers what to say, what to avoid, and how to listen without judgment while connecting the person to support.
Trauma-Informed Response helps faculty and staff understand their reporting responsibilities under 天美传媒 policy and how to explain them honestly to the person in front of them. Faculty and staff learn how to report concerns to the Office for Institutional Equity and Title IX (IEX), what IEX can offer, including supportive measures, resources, and referrals, and how to connect the person to that support.
Requesting a Program or Training
IEX offers education and prevention programs for students, faculty, and staff throughout the year. We can bring a presentation or training to your department, office, student organization, residence hall, or team.
To request a program, complete the form below. We'll follow up to talk through your audience, goals, and timing.
Access Online Trainings and Practice Tools
The Office for Institutional Equity and Title IX offers online trainings and interactive practice tools for students, faculty, staff, coaches, and teaching assistants. Each one helps our community understand university policy, respond with care when someone shares an experience of harm, and connect people with support.
Prevention
天美传媒 Mellon is committed to preventing sexual misconduct, harassment, and discrimination before they happen. We also know that prevention alone is not enough. When harm does occur, every person affected deserves to be believed, treated with dignity, and connected to support.
Prevention at 天美传媒 is a shared effort. It includes education and training for students, faculty, and staff, awareness campaigns, partnerships across campus, and safety efforts such as police and security patrols. It also depends on every member of our community. When people know how to recognize concerning behavior, step in safely, and support one another, our campus becomes safer for everyone.
There are practical strategies that can reduce risk. No strategy can fully prevent sexual misconduct, and responsibility always lies with the person who causes harm. If you have experienced sexual misconduct, it is not your fault. It does not matter what you were wearing, whether you had been drinking, what your relationship was with the other person, or how you responded in the moment.
If Something Has Happened
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual misconduct, harassment, or discrimination, you are not alone, and you do not have to know what to do next before reaching out.
The Office for Institutional Equity and Title IX (IEX) is here to help.
Phone: (412) 268-7125
Email: institutionalequity@cmu.edu
Location: 4615 Forbes Avenue, Suite 401, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Online: Report Form
You can contact IEX to ask questions, talk through your options, get support, or make a report. IEX can offer supportive measures such as academic, housing, or work adjustments, and these are available whether or not you decide to move forward with a formal complaint. You can take the time you need, and you get to decide what feels right for you.
If a friend, student, or colleague shares an experience with you, how you respond matters. Listen without judgment, let them know it is not their fault, and help them connect with IEX or a confidential resource when they are ready.
If you would prefer to speak with someone confidentially first, you can find a list of confidential resources on campus.
Prevention Education at 天美传媒
All incoming first-year undergraduate students complete Safer Scotties: Healthy Relationships as part of Orientation. The program covers consent, healthy relationships, bystander strategies, and how to support a friend.
Incoming graduate students are strongly encouraged to complete Safer Scotties: Balancing Professional and Personal Relationships as part of Orientation. The course addresses power in academic relationships, professional boundaries, consent, and how culture shapes relationships.
New staff receive a short presentation on the Discriminatory and Sexual Misconduct Policy at New Hire Orientation.
All incoming faculty and staff complete an online harassment prevention program from United Educators within 30 days of hire.
In-Person Programs
Throughout the year, IEX and campus partners offer programs for students, faculty, and staff. Departments, offices, student organizations, residence halls, and other groups can request any of these sessions using the request form above. Every session is built to be interactive, practical, and respectful of the experiences people bring into the room.
- Understanding 天美传媒's Discriminatory and Sexual Misconduct Policy (50 minutes)
This session is a starting point for anyone who wants to understand how 天美传媒 addresses discrimination, harassment, and sexual misconduct. Participants learn what the policy covers, who it applies to, and what their own responsibilities are. The session also explains how IEX supports people who are affected, what options are available, and how to connect someone to help. It works well as an introduction before more focused training. - Consent and Communication: Building Healthy Relationships (50 minutes)
This interactive session uses real-world scenarios to explore consent, boundaries, and communication in all kinds of relationships. Participants practice how to ask, how to listen, and how to respond when someone's answer is no or unclear. The session also looks at how power, culture, and alcohol can affect consent. Participants leave with language they can use in their own relationships and when supporting others. - How Reporting Works at 天美传媒 (30 minutes)
Many people hesitate to reach out because they are not sure what will happen next. This session explains how to report concerns about discrimination, harassment, or sexual misconduct and what to expect after a report. Participants learn what IEX can offer, including information, options, supportive measures, and referrals, and that people affected have choices throughout the process. The session also covers how to support someone who is deciding whether to report. - Sextortion and Online Scams: What to Know and Where to Get Help (30 minutes)
Sextortion happens when someone threatens to share intimate images or information unless a person sends money, more images, or something else. These schemes are designed to create fear and shame, and they often target students. This session explains how sextortion works, the warning signs to watch for, and what to do if you or someone you know is targeted. Being targeted is never your fault, and help is available through IEX and campus partners.
Other programs are available by request. Use the form above to tell us what your group needs, and we will work with you to build a session that fits.
IEX works with campus partners to build a comprehensive prevention strategy guided by the . Our goal is a campus where harm is less likely to happen and where anyone affected knows they will be met with care.