SPARC stands for “Sexual & Interpersonal Violence Prevention and Response Course.” It is an online training program developed by The State University of New York in partnership with The City University of New York and is delivered on a Blackboard platform. All incoming, transfer, club/organization officers, study-abroad participants, domestic overnight travelers, student athletes, and resident life occupants must complete SPARC.
At the current time, CUNY Central has advised that all students required to take the program must be manually registered. CUNY Central handles the registration of incoming/transfer students, and cohort group advisors register members of their cohort groups (clubs, athletics, study abroad, etc.) to complete the training.
I am writing to advise you that any students participating in overnight domestic trips, will need to be registered to take SPARC. I will be happy to register these students if provided with their names and Empl IDs as domestic overnight trips come about. Students are required to complete SPARC before the first domestic overnight trip they attend and provide a certificate of completion demonstrating that completion, which will need to be maintained on file for at least three years.
If students have already taken the training for another reason within the year, including a previous domestic overnight trip, they will not be required to retake it in order attend an overnight domestic trip; they should just provide you with a copy of their completion certificate. However, if students took SPARC already at another institution, including another CUNY, and transferred to CSI, they must retake SPARC at CSI; certificates from other CUNY schools will not suffice.
Please contact those individuals within your School/Division/Department traveling domestically and staying overnight (i.e., an overnight trip to Washington DC to attend a conference, etc.) to advise them of this requirement and the information they will need to provide me to make sure all appropriate students are registered and complete the program.
If you have any questions, please feel free contact me directly.
