Professional Development: WRAP Lead Auditor Certification

By Leslie Davis Burns

​Leslie Davis Burns is President and Founder of Responsible Global Fashion LLC (www.responsibleglobalfashion.com) and Professor Emerita at Oregon State University.  

​Leslie is an award winning educator with 34 years of experience teaching social psychology of fashion, fashion marketing/merchandising, and global sourcing.  She is the co-author of three books including The Business of Fashion 5th ed. (2016) published by Fairchild Books and author/co-author of 65 articles in research journals. She writes the blog, “Clothing with a Conscience” and is a member of the Ethical Writers Coalition. Leslie holds a B.A. from Washington State University and a Ph.D. from Purdue University in Consumer Sciences and Retailing.

  As an educator and developer of educational resources, I am always eager to find new professional development opportunities – ones that make an immediate impact on both what I teach and how I teach. I typically find that continuing education opportunities for industry professionals make excellent continuing education opportunities for educators as well. For example, just-style.com and the American Apparel and Footwear Association offer great (and often free!) webinars on current issues in the global fashion industries. When I was taking students on trips to MAGIC or other trade shows, I attended as many of the professional seminars as possible. One of the best professional development experiences I have had in recent years was successfully completing the Lead Auditor Certification offered through the Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP). WRAP is an international “non-profit team of global social compliance experts dedicated to promoting safe, lawful, humane, and ethical manufacturing around the world through certification and education” (WRAP, 2016).  WRAP conducts a number of training programs with a focus on ethical sourcing in the global apparel and footwear industries. The audience for the WRAP training programs is typically industry professionals with offerings held throughout the world but mostly outside the United States. However, with funding from several grants (to both me and to the three student participants), Stuart Webster, [then] VP for Education for WRAP conducted the week-long certification program on the Oregon State University campus.
 
You might be asking – why would a faculty member or students want to be certified as a factory auditor? In fact, neither any of the students nor I were intending to actually become auditors. But what the program provided was not only an amazing overview of social and environmental compliance issues but strategies that fashion brands can take to assure responsible sourcing and production of merchandise -- topics that are relevant to anyone teaching fashion and anyone who is employed by fashion brands! In addition, the format of the program incorporated what I would call “best practices” for classroom teaching with extensive use of active learning teaching strategies such as case studies, team activities, simulations, individual writing, group discussion, short readings with questions, and videos with questions. The program manual was also an excellent teaching guide that I have often referred as both a content and process resource. Aside from carving out a full week during the academic year to devote to participating in this program, the most challenging aspect of the program was the 4-hour essay exam on the last day! It had been some time since I was on the “other end” of an exam and also felt the pressure to being a role model to the students of successfully completing the exam! Whew! Fortunately, I passed the exam with flying colors!
 
Upon completion of the certification, I partnered with Stuart to develop and systematically assess three learning modules related to corporate social responsibility in factory auditing that could be used in college and university courses. These modules were selected because of their relevance to inclusion in undergraduate courses; i.e., background expertise of undergraduate students. Specific modes of learning (e.g., listening, observation, writing, group discussion) were intentionally integrated into the learning modules to address a variety of student learning styles. The three learning modules were:

1. Systems Processes Learning Module: this module included a short lecture on “Evidence of Compliance” and systems processes and a student activity whereby they were asked to document (in written and visual formats) a selected process including all inputs, measurements, and desired outputs. They were also asked to write about how they would conduct a risk assessment on the process and how efficiency and effectiveness of the process would be achieved. Processes included 1) washing your hair, 2) making a perfect cup of coffee, and 3) making a toasted cheese sandwich. Students were then asked to document a process that might occur in an apparel/footwear factory following the same procedures. As a result of this learning module, students were expected to be able to:
   1. Explain the three components that comprise the core of the WRAP program: adoption, deployment, and monitoring.
   2. Define and outline the components of a systems process.
   3. Document a systems process.

1. Codes of Conduct Auditing Terminology: in this learning module teams of students connected terms commonly used in apparel company codes of conduct and auditing with the definitions of terms. A list of 20 terms typically included in codes of conduct and the definitions of these terms were given to students. The definitions were in random order. Students were asked to match the terms with the appropriate definitions. A subsequent activity whereby students applied the terminology in the work of designers and merchandisers was added after the initial assessment was conducted. As a result of this learning module, students were expected to be able to:
   1. Define terms commonly used in apparel company codes of conduct and
   2. Apply these terms to the work of designers and merchandisers.

1. Factory Audit Simulation: this learning module included a short lecture/activity whereby students were exposed to a simulated “factory tour” which included “walking through” a virtual factory, management interviews, and worker interviews. Students were then asked to analyze photographs of the interiors of real apparel/footwear factories and write their observations in addition to what questions might be asked of the management of this factory and what questions might be asked of the workers in this factory. Discussion questions were added after the initial assessment was conducted. As a result of this learning module, students were expected to be able to:
   1. Enhance their observational skills of apparel factory interiors and identify potential issues of workers’ health and safety from observations.
   2. Articulate questions that might be asked of management of factories and questions that might be asked of workers in factories as evidence for improving the health and safety of workers.

The learning objectives of each learning activity were assessed in the following ways:

• Self-reflective learning: students were asked to reflect on what they learned at the conclusion of each learning module and of the course. Reflective writing was content analyzed around emergent themes related to the learning outcomes of the learning module. Units of analysis were written statements. Categories for analysis were the learning objectives for each learning module. At least 80% of the statements reflected self-awareness that the learning objectives had been met.
• Writing analysis: the written components of the two learning modules/activities in which students were asked to write were content analyzed in relation to the learning objectives of the modules/activities. Units of analysis were written statements. Categories for analysis were the learning objectives for each learning module. At least 80% of the statements were found to be correct statements about processes, observations, and questions.
• Exam questions: The students’ abilities to correctly answer four exam questions related to the material included in these learning modules were also assessed. For all four questions, at least 80% of the students correctly answered the exam questions.

 
As you can see, completing the WRAP Lead Auditor Certification proved to be an amazing professional development opportunity – one that led to improved teaching from both content and process perspectives.
For those who are interested I am happy to share the details of these learning modules (simply email me at leslie.d.burns@comcast.net) and I will send you the information.
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Reference:
WRAP (Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production) (2016). About WRAP.
​Retrieved from http://www.wrapcompliance.org/en/about-wrap.