The Campus LGBTQ Centers Directory launched online today, providing a new tool for finding professionally staffed campus resources in the U.S. and Canada.
According to the site, "The Campus LGBTQ Centers Directory is a project to document staffed campus resources regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. The Directory's purpose is to connect people with the offices and to further research on the state of the profession providing LGBTQ resources in higher education."
The Directory includes both a visual map and a listing with information on the center and the campus. Visitors can search by keyword, or search by criteria such as location, type of institution, public v. private, enrollment, religiously-affiliated, etc.
Inclusion in the Directory follows a standard set by the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Directors, which hosted a similar directory in the past. Campus centers or offices must be staffed by a professional staff person or graduate student who works at least 20 hours a week providing LGBTQ services. Centers staffed by volunteers or undergraduate students are not included. Some exceptions are made for small enrollment campuses at which staff provide multiple functions.
The Directory was developed with support from the Calamus Foundation, and LGBTQ centers at The Pennsylvania State University, the University of Oregon, and the University of California, Riverside.
"Penn State has some of the most progressive policies and proceeudresfor the LGBTQA community in the country," says Allison Subasic, LGBTA Student Resource Center director. "We are supported by the administration 100% and we also wrote a grant which supports this project and the LGBTQArchitect."
Nancy Jean Tubbs, director of UC Riverside's LGBT Resource Center, currently maintains the online Directory. "It's always a work in progress," she says. "New centers open every year. Unfortunately, sometimes positions are eliminated, too. But since the Consortium was founded in 1997, the list has grown from 48 centers to over 240 campuses with professional LGBTQ services."
The Directory includes a history page listing the dates in which campuses first established professional LGBTQ services. However, 11 centers' dates of origin are unknown.
Based on the current Directory, 241 campuses are served by 233 centers in the U.S. and Canada. (One center serves 7 campus in Claremont, CA and one center serves 3 campuses in Denver, CO.) 150 or 64% are stand-alone LGBTQ centers, while 14 or 6% are located within a Women's or Gender Equity Center and 61 or 26% are located within a Cross Cultural Center or Diversity Office. Another 8 centers are housed elsewhere on campus.14 centers are directed by Graduate Assistants and 4 centers are affiliated with student governments.
The current institutional profile info is below.
Institutional Type
1 (less than 1%) = Community College
5 (2%) = Bachelor's Conferring / General
24 (10%) = Bachelor's Conferring / Liberal Arts
68 (28%) = Master's Conferring
143 (59%) = PhD Conferring / Research
Affiliation
85 (35% = private
156 (65%) = public
10 (4%) are religiously-affiliated
37 (15%) = Under 5,000
33 (14%) = 5,000 to 10,000
70 (29%) = 10,000 to 20,000
55 (23%) = 20,000 to 30,000
25 (10%) = 30,000 to 40,000
21 (9%) = More Than 40,000
Region
55 = Great Lakes
26 = Mid-Atlantic
12 = Midwest
44 = Northeast
11 = Northwest
7 = South Central
34 = South/Southeast
52 = Southwest
California has the most centers: 29 centers serving 35 institutions.
States with no centers: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wyoming
