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Law Enforcement Innovation Center Rolls Out Cultural Competency Training

Police officers complete a training exercise

The UT Law Enforcement Innovation Center (LEIC) launched its Cultural Competency training in March, with members of the UT Police Department as its first students. All UT law enforcement will receive the training before it is launched nationwide.

“LEIC has created a national certification program for law enforcement agencies across Tennessee and nationwide,” says Rick Scarbrough, LEIC executive director. “This training will increase diversity in law enforcement and examine perceptions, stereotypes and cultural assumptions.”

LEIC is offering this training in partnership with the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles to meet the critical need of increasing diversity, cross-cultural competency and minimizing biased-based policing.


Inaugural Administrative Professionals Academy Class Graduates

Nine administrative professionals from within the Institute for Public Service and the UT System recently graduated from the first Administrative Professionals Academy, a program operated by the Naifeh Center for Effective Leadership.

This first cohort began its journey in April 2019. Over the course of the two-year program, the group met quarterly to learn about different leadership principles and concepts, build its professional networks and gain insight into students’ own leadership strengths.

The administrative professionals who completed the program:


Center of Industrial Services Receives Additional CARES Act Funding


The Center for Industrial Services (CIS) is one of three organizations to receive $5.5 million in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act Recovery Assistance grants from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) to help the state of Tennessee prevent, prepare for and respond to coronavirus.

CIS operates the EDA University Center for Tennessee. The agency will receive $1 million to implement a Business Continuity Planning program in support of the Tennessee Manufacturing Resiliency Initiative, a statewide effort to enhance resiliency of manufacturers to mitigate pandemic-related losses and to bounce back from disruptions to the economic base. The project will be matched with $255,960 in local funds.

These projects are funded under the CARES Act, which provided EDA with $1.5 billion for economic assistance programs to help communities.

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