Information and Support
Staff Ombuds Office
Ombuds Services for Staff provides confidential, informal, independent, and neutral support to staff, faculty supervising staff, and their coworkers at UNM. Ombuds are available for visitors to voice, discuss, and clarify any university-related concerns.
- Your communications/visits remain confidential, even to the UNM administration;
- A trained staff member will listen to your concerns, refer you to campus and community resources, and discuss your options for taking (or not taking) specific actions.
- Staff Ombuds also offers trainings and mediation services, in which your participation is entirely voluntary.
- This office supports entirely informal dispute resolution, and does not engage in investigation, advocacy, or sanction of parties to a dispute.
- Any reporting or other actions you take following your consultation with the Ombuds are entirely up to you.
Confidential Advocates
The Women's and the LGBTQ Resource Centers are staffed by trained and confidential Advocates, who offer referrals and some continuing support for faculty and staff of any gender who have experienced harassment based on their sexuality and/or gender identity.
- Advocates trained in trauma-informed care will listen to what happened and offer relevant and confidential supportive services;
- Advocates can help visitors identify and navigate formal reporting options, and may be able to accompany you to appointments or meetings to deal with your experience.
- Because your communications with Advocates are confidential and the Resource Centers do not document your visit, no further actions are triggered by conferring with a confidential Advocate.
Counseling, Assistance and Referral Services (CARS)
CARS provides on-site and remote? services to assist UNM faculty and staff members with professional and personal concerns. Relationship difficulties, anxiety, stress and job burnout, depression, eldercare, coworker conflicts, alcohol or other drug abuse, managing change, grief and loss issues and preparing for retirement are just a few of the issues CARS can address.
- Crisis intervention during work hours.
- Regular appointments to treat a wide range of staff and faculty concerns from a therapeutic perspective.
- When warranted, CARS may arrange for departmental workshops or in-service trainings.
Other mental health services, both at UNM and in the community, may be found at https://mentalhealth.unm.edu/
Supervisor
Your supervisor may advocate on your behalf or help you resolve the conflict informally, but they are also required to report certain incidents and may also have responsibility toward the offending colleague or student.
Supervisors also play an important role in resolving bullying disputes – whether formally or informally -- via the University’s Respectful Campus policies. If you wish to report bullying by another staff member, contact the offending colleague’s supervisor; if the bullying is carried out by faculty, contact the faculty member’s chair.
- The supervisor may be able to refer you to helpful campus and community resources;
- Your supervisor may recommend remedies to help manage the situation, including voluntary mediation and changes to work schedule or environment.
- Your conversations may not remain confidential, depending on how you identify the harms you have experienced;
- If you choose to formally report bullying, your supervisor may seek informal resolution or disciplinary action if the offending party reports to the same supervisor;
- As in any situation where you share information with someone other than a confidential resource, the offending party(ies) may seek retaliation, which is prohibited under university policy but can occur.
Report
Supervisor
Your supervisor may advocate on your behalf or help you resolve the conflict informally, but they are also required to report certain incidents and may also have responsibility toward the offending colleague or student.
Supervisors also play an important role in resolving bullying disputes – whether formally or informally -- via the University’s Respectful Campus policies. If you wish to report bullying by another staff member, contact the offending colleague’s supervisor; if the bullying is carried out by faculty, contact the faculty member’s chair.
- The supervisor may be able to refer you to helpful campus and community resources;
- Your supervisor may recommend remedies to help manage the situation, including voluntary mediation and changes to work schedule or environment.
- Your conversations may not remain confidential, depending on how you identify the harms you have experienced;
- If you choose to formally report bullying, your supervisor may seek informal resolution or disciplinary action if the offending party reports to the same supervisor;
- As in any situation where you share information with someone other than a confidential resource, the offending party(ies) may seek retaliation, which is prohibited under university policy but can occur.
EthicsPoint Hotline
EthicsPoint is a third-party hotline and website through which any member of the campus community can report any suspected misconduct at the university. The UNM Compliance Office uses this information to initiate investigations and generate data on policy violations at UNM. You may use EthicsPoint to submit either an anonymous or identified report to the University.
- The University may choose to start an investigation per the relevant policy.
- If you provide your name, someone from the University may contact you for more information about the incident. They may also ask you to serve as a witness in an ongoing investigation.
- If you choose to remain anonymous, you will not be contacted unless you file your report with another campus office. However, be aware that your report to the EthicsPoint Hotline may trigger a University investigation of the campus unit where the incident occurred.
- CEEO will use the information you provide to identify individuals and units that have engaged in repeated misconduct.
- You may learn about actions the University has taken in response to your anonymous report by logging back in to the EthicsPoint website.
