MIT is committed to working with all students to create a healthy and vibrant campus community. One aspect of this is to confront the important topics of sexual assault, harassment and relationship violence through mandatory training.
Requirement: All incoming undergraduate students and graduate students are required to take tailored foundational online sexual misconduct prevention and response training.
In 2018, the students, faculty, and staff members of the Committee on Sexual Misconduct Prevention & Response (CSMPR) further recommended that each undergraduate class year take a booster course.
About Trainings
As a part of an ongoing effort to prevent sexual assault, sexual harassment and relationship violence, we have partnered with Vector Solutions and the ARRIVE Center at SUNY to offer Sexual Assault Prevention courses, each customized to meet the needs of undergraduate and graduate students. These courses will help you become familiar with MIT policies and resources, while also providing training on critical prevention skills and strategies.
Incoming New Student Trainings
All incoming students are required to complete the Sexual Assault Prevention training within their first semester enrolled. Failure to complete these trainings in a timely manner will result in a registration hold which will prevent registration for subsequent semesters.
Sexual Assault Prevention for Undergraduates (SAP-U)
SAP-U supports incoming undergraduate students in recognizing sexual assault and harassment behavior, identifying healthy and unhealthy relationship practices, practicing skills to navigate consent-focused conversations, and safely engaging in bystander intervention.
Sexual Assault Prevention for Graduate Students (SAP-G)
SAP-G equips graduate students with the tools needed to navigate new and complex relationships including how to identify and respond to harassment from a faculty member or advisor, other workplace-based harassment, how to respectfully engage with undergraduate students, and how to respond to student disclosures.
Booster Trainings
In 2018, the Committee on Sexual Misconduct Prevention & Response (CSMPR) recommended that each class year take a booster course and planned a multi-year rollout starting with a required course for sophomores. The CSMPR believes in ongoing education efforts so that all members of a given class have the same foundational knowledge—a crucial component of effective prevention.
Sexual Assault Prevention Ongoing – Healthy Relationships (For Sophomores)
This course empowers students beyond their first year by strengthening their consent and relationship skills, and their ability to intervene when friends engage in unsafe or unhealthy behaviors. Building on students’ developmental experiences, this training prepares them to navigate professional environments using realistic scenarios and increases survivor empathy through understanding the impact of trauma.
Sexual Assault Prevention Ongoing – Taking Action (For Juniors)
Building on previous bystander intervention training, juniors will strengthen their ability to intervene when friends engage in unsafe or unhealthy behavior, and to intervene earlier–before a situation escalates. Learners will explore the relationships between identity and bystander intervention and build on previous knowledge and skills in order to decrease individual barriers to taking action.
The Sexual & Interpersonal Violence Prevention and Response Course (SPARC Go+) – For Seniors
SPARC Go+ is an online course consisting of three modules that provides important prevention skills and strategies around issues associated with sexual assault, relationship violence, and stalking. It also covers resources found on MIT’s campus including the Institute Discrimination & Harassment Response Office (IDHR) and the Violence Prevention and Response Office (VPR).
Frequently Asked Questions
When is the deadline for each training?
Please refer to the email notifications regarding the deadline for your assigned training.
Each training has two parts. Please note that you will be subject to a registration hold if you do not complete Part 1 of your assigned training by the deadline you were provided. This means that you will not be able to register for the upcoming semester until you complete it.
Part 2 will be available to you a few weeks after you complete Part 1. You will receive an email notification with the link to access the training.
Why am I required to take this training?
MIT is committed to working with all students to create a healthy and vibrant campus community. One aspect of this is to confront the important topics of sexual assault, harassment and relationship violence.
As a part of this ongoing effort, we have partnered with Vector Solutions and the ARRIVE Center at SUNY to offer Sexual Assault Prevention training, each customized to meet the student needs. These courses will help you become familiar with MIT policies and resources, while also providing training on critical prevention skills and strategies.
What if I have already taken a version of this training at MIT?
All incoming MIT undergraduate students and graduate students are asked to take a tailored foundational online sexual misconduct prevention and response training.
All undergraduate students are additionally required to take a booster course each year. This is different from the previous required training you have taken at MIT.
How long does it take to complete the sexual assault prevention training?
Part 1 of the online training takes about an hour to complete. You may take it in multiple sittings.
Part 2 takes about 10 minutes.
How will MIT use the information I provide in this training?
All survey responses are anonymous; the school will only receive information about the student body as a whole and will never see individual students’ responses. For the purposes of tracking overall learning progress among students, administrators will have access to scores from the short tests administered in trainings but, like the training surveys, will not have access to individual responses.
I have completed the training but it is not showing up in the Atlas Learning Center as such. Why isn’t it showing up?
The Atlas Learning Center should automatically update once the course has been completed and properly closed. If the course isn’t showing up as completed after refreshing the course page on Atlas, please email trainmod@mit.edu and we will look to see if we can manually mark the course as completed.
**Because of a high volume of users, receiving a completion email could take a few hours.
When am I supposed to take Part 2 of this training?
Part 2 will be available to you a few weeks after you complete Part 1. You will receive an email notification with the link to access the training.
The courses are designed to see what you know before you take them. The post-assessment in Part 2 checks your understanding after you have had time to process the material. This pre- and post-assessment helps MIT to determine if the courses are effective.
What if I have personal concerns about taking this training?
If you feel that taking this training would be difficult, please feel free to contact Simi Ogunsanwo (soguns@mit.edu), the Manager of Prevention Education at IDHR, to discuss obtaining a waiver.
What if I have other questions?
Please contact the IDHR education team at trainmod@mit.edu.