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MSU Foundations: Our Spartan Community

MSU Foundations: Our Spartan Community is a university-wide online educational learning experience created for new students, faculty, and staff. To foster a sense of belonging, the ​​​​​​​Office for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion developed this fully customized, MSU-specific e-learning opportunity in collaboration with many campus units and experts.

Enrollment

You don’t have to take any action to enroll in this course. You’ll be automatically assigned and will receive an email notification. The program will be accessible from the Ability learning platform by logging in with your MSU NetID. 

Modules

The program has five modules, and a few include supplementary PDFs that can be downloaded from the module or here.

 

  • Additional learning opportunities

    MSU Foundations is only an introductory course for your journey. We strongly encourage you to continue learning through other courses or programs.  

    Credit-bearing courses  

    MSU offers a variety of academic programs that promote the study of culture, geography, language, gender, religion, ability or other inclusion-related topics. If you’re a student, consider majoring or minoring in those programs or take one or two classes to broaden your horizon. You can find academic programs and minor lists here.

    IDI programs

    You can continue your journey by taking programs offered by IDI.  

     

    Campus programs  

    The Gender and Sexuality Campus Center offers Quest: Building Capacity for LGBTQA+ Inclusion. This online educational program explores introductory concepts and provides a solid foundation of knowledge on LGBTQIA2S+ identities and pronoun workshops.  

    The Office of the University Ombudsperson offers education and training programs and presentations to improve the knowledge, skills and understanding of university policies and procedures and conflict resolution and endeavors that build fairness, equity and due process within university systems. Those include workshops for faculty such as “MSU Syllabi: Promoting Equity, Fairness and Dialogues in the Classroom.” 

    Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities, or RCPD, offers many resources and services to support Spartans with disabilities better. RCPD Disability and Accommodation Training is a self-enroll D2L course that covers disability education, accommodation implementation and accessibility. It takes approximately one hour to complete.    

    The Office of Student Support and Accountability provides a Restorative Justice Program that helps community members resolve conflicts peacefully and effectively. They offer training for facilitators to learn the principles and practices of restorative justice.    

    The Faculty and Academic Staff Affairs offers academic search committee training, which provides foundational compliance requirements, commitments to equitable hiring and expectations for implementing best practices at MSU. It includes helpful information on recruitment, evaluation and appointment processes for open faculty and academic staff positions. A must training for search committee chairs and committee members.

  • Acknowledgments

    IDI is grateful to all individuals and offices who participated in developing this course. Their writing drafts at various stages, reviews, feedback and perspectives contributed significantly to this e-learning opportunity. Thank you so much for your contribution and participation in this project.    

    Project owner: Office for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion

    Project manager: Mina Shin

    Project supervisor: Patricia Stewart

    Editor: Henry Mochida, Mina Shin 

    Instructional designer: Anne Baker

    Initial consultation: Amol Pavangadkar, Jay Miller 

    Content and writing contributors  

    We thank the following internal and external individuals  and entities listed in alphabetical order:

    Yael Aronoff, Ellie Baden, Jabbar Bennett, Sydnie Burnstein, Cheryl Caesar, Matea Caluk, Anjam Chaudhary, Morgan Doherty, Maggie Chen-Hernandez, Kirsten Fermaglich, Colleen Floyd, Tesia Freer, Nicolas Gisholt, Jonelle Golding, Shelby Gombosi, Oprah Jrenal, Swapna Hingwe, Qi Huang, Danielle Hook, Mohammad Khalil, Stratton Lee, Kevin Leonard, Anna Lin, Ebony Lucas, James McGill II, Joyce Meier, Ariana Mentzel, Henry Mochida, Matt Olovson, Anna Pegler-Gordon, Jade Richards, Saba Saed, Linda Sayed, Nicole Schmidtke, Kelly Schweda, Mina Shin, Amy Simon, Emily Sorocche, Rose Spangler, Patricia Stewart, Sitara Thobani, Shannon Torres, Naoko Wake and Antonio White.

    Chicano/Latino Faculty, Staff, Specialist and Graduate Student Association   

    Office for Education Abroad  

    Prevention, Outreach and Education  

    Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities 

    University of Advising DEI Working Group      

    Workforce Action Committee for Spartan Staff  

    Video credits  

    Meet Spartans Video  

    Interviewees (listed in alphabetical order): Gula Annamyradova, David Anosti, Gian Batayola, Anjam Chaudhary, Patrick Forystek, Brooke Jeffery, Dominant Johnson, Alyssa Konesky, Danny Layne, Anna Lin, Susan McFarlane-Alvarez, Tamari Tensley   

    Interviewer and Producer: Mina Shin  

    Videographer and Editor: Kevin Epling, Randy Flick II

    When two roommates meet for the first time  

    Writer/Director: Lynn Lammers   

    Actors: Khanyi Nawa, Aleida Contreras 

    Videographer and Editor: Kevin Epling, Randy Flick II   

    Producer: Mina Shin

    Toxic Culture

    Writer/Director: Lynn Lammers  

    Actors: Rico Bruce Wade, Angela Dawe, Aral Gribble

    Student Council on Disabilities Video

    Speakers: Megan Weil, Caroline Downes  

    Additional credits: Virginia Rutan, Jennifer Montague, Rebecca Wetzel, Michael Hudson

    Photos    

    University Communications, Office for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, College of Communication Arts and Sciences, College of Social Sciences, Broad College of Business  

    Anne Baker, Meaghan Kozar, Blake Matthews, Dane Robison, Mina Shin 

    Graphics   

    Earlene Ling  

    Jada Flowers/College of Communication Arts and Sciences Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Office

    IT support   

    Office of Research Regulatory Support: Candace Winslow, Michelle Carlson, Dan Krull 

    Testing 

    Many anonymous reviewers and testers 

    Accessibility Review 

    Tracy Leahy, Josie Davidson/Office for Civil Rights & Title IX Education and Compliance 

    Annika Arney, Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities 

    The progress of this project has been presented at many venues. Special thanks to  

    Meaghan Kozar (Inclusive Community Initiative), Associated Students of Michigan State University, Tina Alonzo (EVPA DEI Office), Philip S. DeOrtentiis (School of Human Resources and Labor Relations) and Opal Bartzis (Office for Education Abroad).

Please check this FAQ page for frequently asked questions.

If you have any questions or feedback, please contact MSUFoundations@msu.edu

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