Agenda

Your registration fee includes full access to all conference sessions and materials, access to the networking reception on Wednesday, breakfast and lunch on Thursday, and breakfast on Friday, as well as refreshments and snacks throughout the conference.

12:30 – 5:30 p.m.

 

 

---

 

In this opening session, you will have the opportunity to review, discuss, and analyze the proposed Title IX federal regulations that will impact your day-to-day work on sexual harassment investigations. Our expert speakers will highlight the proposed changes that are most critical, and offer their strategies and recommendations to meet these regulations, should they pass into law. You will be able to identify and explain at least three pivotal proposed changes and develop strategies to modify current practice, if necessary.

 

---

 

Several cases require a thorough understanding of how to interpret and process incidents involving partners in a dating/domestic violence situation, stalking cases, or cases involving a student demographic that may not be part of your traditional caseload. Since there is often very little guidance from the Department of Education on how these cases should be managed, Title IX investigators are frequently left resolving these cases through trial and error or with a good faith effort. You will be able to identify at least one complex case type, develop a strategy, and identify resources to equitably and ethically resolve these cases.

 

---

 

 

---

8:30 – 4:30 p.m.

 

Several investigators have defined for themselves a strategy to develop critical questions during the investigation process. We will focus on helping you learn some new techniques for designing and asking questions during the investigation process. Our expert speakers will draw on their legal backgrounds and training to provide some useful strategies to solicit a complete narrative from the witnesses. Based on what you learn, you will be able to review your current interview strategy and identify opportunities for revision or modification.

 

---

 

Now that you have learned how to identify new interview techniques, you will have an opportunity to practice their application though a case study. You will apply your new-found techniques to an existing case from your campus and share, in pairs, how you modified your current interview strategies to solicit a more complete response from the witness.

 

---

 

During this session, you will have the opportunity to disclose some of your own challenges related to analyzing witness testimony. You will learn from each other’s challenges and our expert speakers will begin to address these issues in the following session.

 

---

 

Seasoned investigators know all too well that not all witnesses will be as forthcoming, honest, or knowledgeable about an incident in question. You will learn new techniques on following up on information that is inconsistent with other witness testimonies, or evidence that does not corroborate witness statements. You will leave this session with the ability to explain at least two new techniques that will help you best analyze witness testimony that may be incomplete.

 

---

 

First, our speakers will briefly highlight the difference between the two burdens of proof that institutions may use when resolving sexual harassment cases: preponderance of the evidence and/or clear and convincing standard. Then, our speakers will provide a tool and guiding questions to help you ensure that the witness testimonies and the evidence rise to the level of determining whether a campus policy was violated or not. You will be able to utilize a new formula that will help you reach your designated burden of proof to determine a decision for sexual harassment and gender-based misconduct cases.

 

---

8:30 – 12:15 p.m.

 

Incomplete testimony, inconsistent evidence, corroborated witness statements, supporting evidence — the list goes on and on. These are only some of the considerations investigators must be prepared to identify and explain when writing their witness credibility assessments at the end of their investigative interviews. Our experts will provide you with advanced training on how to effectively and efficiently make sense of consistent and inconsistent information, gathered during the interview process for the final investigation report.

 

---

 

You will be introduced to a case study and begin to identify the inconsistencies and analyze the credibility of each witness using the newly learned strategies from the previous session.

 

---

 

This final session will highlight best practices on how a final investigation report should be organized and what information must be shared by the institution. You will be able to review your current investigation report template and identify at least two major improvements.

 

---