Dr. Molly Merryman fought for an LGBTQ student center at Kent State University.
SAN FRANCISCO—While serving on a search committee for a new vice president for diversity and inclusion at Kent State University, Dr. Molly Merryman began inquiring about the absence of campus space set aside for gay and lesbian students. After all, students of color already had designated spaces and centers.
Before long, a university official offered Merryman an unused room for an LGBTQ student center that was established in 2010.
“We agreed that I would find a way to staff the center and allow the new vice president to take credit for it as her first new initiative,” Merryman said. “By gifting the center to this vice president, we utilized the existing transition at Kent State to get something important done.”
Merryman’s remarks came last week during the annual summer institute, “Expanding the Circle: Creating an Inclusive Environment in Higher Education for LGBTQ Students and Studies.” Educators from more than 60 colleges and universities nationally attended the event, held at the California Institute of Integral Studies, a stand-alone graduate school offering comparative and cross-cultural studies in philosophy, cultural anthropology, health and other disciplines.
The institute offers educators an opportunity to share best practices and initiatives across academic and student affairs, across various diversities and across various disciplines and LGBT subfields. Institute participants include academic deans and administrators, faculty and faculty development specialists, student life professionals and campus counselors.
Merryman, a Kent State associate professor of sociology, co-led a session titled “Developing and Expanding LGBTQ Courses, Concentrations and Programs.” Although academics were the focus of the day-long session, the dialogue among participants sometimes turned to student life and co-curricular activities.
For instance, one attendee described how he and others at his institution were trying to launch an LGBT study abroad program. It included a service-learning component through which a U.S. student would defray his or her overseas costs by working for advocacy groups and agencies in the foreign country while attending school.
