How can the higher education community better understand the influence of campus climate and educational practice on LGBTQ student success?
We focused on this very question in late March at the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ (AAC&U) Diversity, Learning, and Student Success conference in Chicago. The aim in our session was to connect anecdotes about LGBTQ student experiences with the literature on student success, and we used theories on identity and inequality to help augment our presentation. We saw this conference as an opportunity to collaborate on the issue of LGBTQ student success through our different backgrounds and expertise.
Through this collaborative work, we are seeking to broaden the notion of what it means to be underserved in U.S. higher education. Students experience higher education through multiple, intersecting identities, including their sexual identities and gender expressions. Yet, too many LGBTQ students feel unsafe, unwelcome, or disconnected from social and/or academic life on their respective campuses.
For example, as Diverse reported in June of last year, a student was expelled from Grace University, a private, Christian college in Omaha, for engaging in a same-sex relationship while finishing her degree and while working at a civil rights organization in another state. Since the institution is private, the administration can expel students who do not meet the code of conduct.
In September of last year, another student at Edgecombe Community College in Rocky Mount, N.C., was featured in the local news, describing the constant bullying, harassment, and death threats that she faces as an openly transgender student on her campus. She considered dropping out, but she opted to first push for stricter anti-bullying policies at her institution.
Both of these examples underscore the importance of social and academic support for our nation’s LGBTQ students. As participants at our session pointed out last month, LGBTQ students are often provided either social or academic support on their campuses—but generally not both.
Instances such as the above are often “explained away” (Frankenburg, 1993) by the rhetoric of free speech or freedom of expression, even where we can identify threat or harm to students and other campus community members. These examples, which surely affected campus climate, should instead be positioned inside the discourse of civility and civic engagement.
