LGBT Campus Center

An LGBT Campus Center is an administrative office of a college or university that provides resources and support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students.

Function

Depending on the campus, an LGBT Campus Center's mission may include faculty support, student advocacy, alumni relations, and/or public relations with the greater community (especially in response to crisis).

An LGBT Campus Center may provide academic resources related to LGBT Studies, support social opportunities for LGBT people to interact, and sponsor educational events for the campus as a whole. Most Campus Centers provide referrals to other campus departments or off-campus organizations to help meet student needs.

Some LGBT Campus Centers provide psychological counseling for students struggling with their sexual or gender identity and for students coping with internal or external prejudice. Some example scenarios of when a student might seek out counseling from an LGBT Campus Center:

* A questioning student seeks help understanding their sexual identity
* A self-affirmed transgender student has just experienced a bias-motivated attack
* A straight student is having difficulty coping with a gay roommate

Some LGBT Campus Centers may provide financial aid to students by means of scholarships, research grants, or work opportunities. This may be especially important for LGBT students, as it is not unheard of for these students to lose financial assistance from unsupportive parents.

Demographics

According to a November 2006 report by the National Consortium of Directors of LGBT Resources in Higher Education, there are 115 LGBT Campus Centers that employ professional staff in North America, though this figure is not comprehensive.

The first known LGBT Campus Center was established in 1971 at the University of Michigan.

Only three of the eight Ivy League schools lack an LGBT Campus Center: Columbia, Harvard, and Yale. Nine of the Big Ten universities have LGBT Campus Centers - only Iowa and Purdue don't. Princeton University is the only Big Three university with an LGBT Campus Center.

Of The Advocate's "Top 20 Universities for LGBT Students" [http://www.advocate.com/currentstory1_w_ektid35308.asp] , the University of Puget Sound is the only one without an explicit LGBT Campus Center. However, the University's Multicultural Student Services office serves LGBT students in addition to other minority student populations. The University of Southern California, a school that received a perfect "GPA" (Gay Point Average) from the Advocate, has both an LGBT Resource Center and a GLBT Student Assembly.

California is the US state with the most LGBT Campus Centers (16). 14 states have no professionally staffed LGBT Campus Centers:

# Alabama
# Alaska
# Arkansas
# Idaho
# Mississippi
# Montana
# Nevada
# New Mexico
# North Dakota
# Oklahoma
# South Carolina
# South Dakota
# Tennessee
# Wyoming

Related

* National Consortium of Directors of LGBT Resources in Higher Education, is the professional organization for staffers of LGBT Campus Centers
* Student Affairs
* List of LGBT-related organizations, includes campus and non-campus organizations
* List of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community centers, non-campus organizations only

External links

* Map of LGBT Campus Centers [http://www.lgbtcampus.org/ConsortiumMap.pdf pdf]
* Directory of LGBT Campus Centers [http://lgbtcampus.org/directory.htm]
* Self-studies of the National Consortium of Directors of LGBT Resources in Higher Education [http://lgbtcampus.org/resources/consortium_self-studies.htm]