Faculty members and administrators will undergo diversity training in April and May, respectively, in accordance with Interim University President Lisa Lynch’s Feb. 24 email providing updates on the University’s diversity and inclusion efforts.

Associate Provost for Academic Affairs Kim Godsoe announced in a March 17 email sent to the Intercultural Center listserv that the trainings would be helmed by Tracey Britton. Britton currently works with Edgework Consulting, a “consulting group focused on launching and developing great teams,” according to its website. The email was sent by Program Coordinator for Sexuality and Gender Diversity Felix Tunador.

In her Feb. 24 email, Lynch wrote that the diversity trainings are intended to increase “accountability and reporting” within the University community. According to Godsoe, there will be three training sessions in April — one for chairs in Arts and Sciences and two for faculty members — and one in May for University administrators.

According to the March 17 email, Britton’s previous work with higher education includes stints at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, the University of Rhode Island, Wheelock College and Northeastern University. Godsoe included in her email to the Justice a summary of Britton’s experiences, explaining that Britton led trainings in diversity and cultural competency at the University of Rhode Island; that she chaired the Empower retreat — which “focused on linking communities, igniting social consciousness and inspiring leadership among students of color” — at Northeastern; and that she served as the Community Engagement Consultant for Wheelock.

Britton made an initial visit to campus on Thursday to meet with two small groups of students, staff and faculty to “learn about their perceptions about diversity at Brandeis” and gauge what the training sessions should look like, Godsoe wrote in her email to the Justice. “Tracey likes to speak to faculty and students about their perceptions of where the campus is in regards to diversity issues to tailor the training to our specific campus,” she noted in her initial message.

In her work outside of higher education, the document explained, Britton designed and delivered cultural competency trainings for Americorps members hired in the Coach Across America program and worked as a trainer in the Boston Busing/Desegregation Project, “an effort to facilitate discussions about busing that are focused on truth telling, learning from the truth and making change,” the document noted. She also aided the Kona Pacific Charter School in Hawaii in developing their culturally competent recruiting strategies for school enrollment.

Britton has been certified as an educator and facilitator for Project TEAMWORK, “a program recognized by Bill Clinton as a model violence prevention program designed to engage people in discussions about diversity,” according to the document.

She is also a Master Trainer for the Mentors in Violence Prevention program, which trains bystanders to play a more active role in solving social problems on college campuses.

In an email to the Justice, Godsoe explained that the decision to have Britton lead the initial round of diversity training came after a subgroup of the Provost’s Diversity Steering Committee screened multiple consulting firms.

The subgroup consisted of Profs. Andrea Acevedo (HS), Dan Bergstresser (IBS), Jennifer Gutsell (PSYC) and Dan Perlman (BIOL), Senior Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences for Undergraduate Education Elaine Wong and Director of Experiential Learning and Teaching Daniel Langenthal.