Compliance Training FAQs for Employees

The ESPARC and WVP training will be available to all employees beginning Monday, August 28th for the 2023-2024 academic year. All part time employees, including adjuncts, are responsible for completing both trainings by the end of the current semester to ensure their completion is logged by the University. All full-time employees will have until Friday, May 31st to complete the trainings. Additionally, starting this year, the GBV training will be available to all HR Professionals and CUNY managers and will follow the same deadlines as the ESPARC and WVP trainings.   

In compliance with New York State law, CUNY’s Sexual Misconduct Policy and CUNY’s Campus and Workplace Violence Prevention Policy, all CUNY employees are required to complete training at least once each academic year.  This includes full-time and part-time staff, faculty and adjunct professors. Starting in Fall 2023, all HR Professionals and CUNY managers will also be responsible for completing the state-mandated Gender Based Violence training.

The Research Foundation provides training for their employees.  You are not required to complete CUNY trainings. Work study staff and volunteers do not have to complete the training.

Per Section 3.4 of the 2019 Memorandum of Agreement for a Successor Collective Bargaining Agreement Between CUNY and PSC:

“Allocation of paid professional hours per college for teaching adjuncts assigned to teach one or more but fewer than 3 classroom contact hours in a single college: two (2) paid professional hours/semester to be used for required trainings (e.g., Workplace Violence Prevention, Sexual Harassment Prevention, You Have a Right to Know, etc.); for professional development; for attendance at college orientation sessions; for meetings with the union pursuant to Section 208.4 (b) of the NYS Civil Service Law, which may be conducted individually or in a group, as agreed to with the PSC; or as otherwise directed by the colleges.”

From your web browser you must navigate to cuny.edu > From the Login drop down menu, select the Blackboard option > Enter your CUNYfirst username, along with @login.cuny.edu, and password > Blackboard page will open with the Home tab active. The course will be displayed under My Organizations. For additional instructions go to CUNY Blackboard.

Instructions for completing the compliance trainings are available through Blackboard. You may also reach out to your campus training administrators to inquire about instructions for accessing the compliance trainings.

Each course takes approximately 30 minutes to complete.  We recommend scheduling time on your calendar to complete the course in one sitting to avoid any technical issues. If courses are not completed in one sitting, there may be issues generating certificates.

CUNY employees must navigate to their account in Blackboard to complete the training for tracking purposes. Campuses may also provide additional live training for employees. Please reach out to your campus compliance administrator to inquire about any additional options that may be available.

Please contact your campus compliance administrators for guidance.

You should log in to your Blackboard account to check your training record. You can also log into CUNYfirst and navigate to Human Capital Management > Self Service > Compliance Trainings to view your training status.

Employees are only responsible for completing the training once for their primary campus.

The training can be accessed by desktop, laptop, or tablet (with current software updates). Recommended browsers include: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari and Mozilla Firefox.  While the training is accessible on most mobile devices, it is recommended that you use one of the recommended devices listed above.

On the final page of the trainings in ESPARC and WVP, employees must click on Mark Reviewed for their completion to be marked and for the certificate to be generated. If Mark Reviewed is not selected on the final page, the employees’ training will remain incomplete, and no certificate will be generated. Once the training is complete, a certificate link will populate in the Blackboard menu on the left and employees will be able to view their Certificate of Completion. In order to generate a certificate for the GBV training, employees must complete the training video in one sitting and must not exit out of Blackboard during the training.

If you have additional technical issues launching the course in Blackboard you should contact the campus Help Desk to resolve the issue.