Samantha Tellone, Sr. Business Analyst with OIT has been instrumental in establishing the Vector Governance Committee, an initiative to enhance the oversight and management of required training courses for faculty, staff, and employees.
About a year ago, Samantha, alongside Ron Lujan, Director ERP (my.SMU), began creating a training governance structure. This initiative arose from previous discussions with Mary Stall, Senior HR Specialist, who recognized the need for additional assistance in helping to ensure essential training requirements such as FERPA, Preventing Harassment and Discrimination, Clery Act, Protecting Youth: Abuse & Neglect Protection were complete.
They aimed to streamline processes to better track compliance and create templates for visualizing completion statuses. Samantha reached out to the service owners responsible for various training areas to facilitate this. This allowed owners to contribute insights and assist with queries, Help Desk tickets, and tracking training completion.
The Vector Governance Committee comprises approximately a dozen members who utilize Vector as their training platform. This committee was created to establish the best practices for managing training requirements, ensuring that individuals complete their courses and have access to status updates.
Samantha conducted individual meetings to onboard committee members to familiarize them with documentation emphasizing the importance of consistent record-keeping regarding the completion status of mandatory courses for employees.
SMU utilizes three main licenses for Vector: one for employee training—covering essential topics like FERPA, managed by Joe Papari, Director of Enrollment Services for Student Systems and Technology. Also, Preventing Harassment and Discrimination and Protecting Youth: Abuse & Neglect Protection by Samantha Thomas. Another for student training overseen by Michael Hogan, Assistant to the Associate Vice President and Dean of Students; and the third for Risk Management by Leigh Ann Moffett, Associate Vice President and Chief Risk Officer.
Vector has been used for other initiatives for DEI to streamline the Hidden Scripts Course. More recently, Pery Doan, Information Technology Architect, has also contributed to the Vector efforts by developing a course tracking page for the Provost’s Office, categorizing course status to increase completion.
Samantha shared, “The committee’s value in providing managers with a visible and consistent method in overseeing employees’ training requirements, ensure that courses are completed in a timely manner.” This supports the university’s compliance efforts as well.
The Vector Governance Committee meets monthly and works to propose new procedures to the PEC regarding future training and compliance. Currently, employees can view their required courses and their completion status within Vector or through my.SMU under the Learning and Development tile, specifically within the Training Summary section.
