Below is part of an article Campus Pride produced acknowledging Elmhurst College as the first U.S. institution to include demographic quesitons about sexual orientation and gender identity. This is wonderful progress and students can choose to fill this in or not. This also gives the campus a way to immediately get resources to LGBT students and track rention rates, to name a few advantages.

 

Elmhurst College, a private four-year liberal arts college, is the first U.S. institution of higher education to ask a demographic question about identity on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity on a college admission form. Their decision reflects a conscious choice by administrators at the college to actively include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students in the broader life of the college and its campus.

"The move by Elmhurst administrators to include this question represents a distinct and unique paradigm shift in higher education to actively recognize out LGBT youth populations and to exercise greater responsibility for LGBT student safety," said Shane Windmeyer, Campus Pride executive director. "For the first time, an American college has taken efforts to identify their LGBT students from the very first moment those students have official contact with them. This is definite progress in the right direction -- and deserves praise."

The new college admissions application asks an optional question about how students identify their sexual orientation and gender identity. The question will be used to determine incoming students' needs, potential interest in campus programs and to offer support resources. Further, the question will also indicate potential eligibility for the school's Enrichment Scholarship, which can be awarded to students from underrepresented groups on campus.

The admissions application question asks, "Would you consider yourself to be a member of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community?" Students can answer "Yes," "No," or "Prefer not to say." The question appears alongside other optional questions asking students about religious affiliation, languages other than English spoken at home and whether they have worked with a community-based organization in their college search process.

"In words and action, Elmhurst College stands by our commitment to welcome and affirm all persons with respect to race, ethnicity, class, gender, religion, faith perspective, nationality, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression into the full life of the college," said Christine Grenier, Elmhurst College associate director of Admission. "Being able to reach out to LGBT students intentionally will allow us to connect to students earlier, help ease the transition to college and provide valuable resources on campus."

Last January the Common Application, which represents nearly 400 colleges and universities, rejected a proposal to add similar identity questions to their standardized national admissions application citing cultural norms and that very few colleges have sought the information. The organization the same year added a question around religious affiliation for public and private campuses.

"Elmhurst College recognizes the value of all diversity to campus life," said Windmeyer. "The college admission form is an essential way to gather data on prospective students and to communicate a message of inclusion, worth and value by the questions being asked. The bar has been set."

This is my first blog entry and I am choosing to comment on Allison Subasic's entry because I like the idea of using this forum to communicate with each other.   

During the summer Allison submitted a very interesting blog entry about a ruling by the Supreme Court that seems very promising as a trend for how religious groups in higher ed must be respectful of human rights issues for LGBT students and church members.  I plan to pass this on to CAPS staff who I know will be interested in implications. 

Thanks to Allison for the entry. 

Mary Anne Knapp 

I was recently introduced to an interesting approach to program design and evaluation being practiced in the College of Engineering at Oklahoma State University. It may seem a little rigid for the average Student Affairs practitioner (they are engineers after all), but it is certainly interesting. I've pasted a blurb below, but it's worth checking out their web site at http://es21c.okstate.edu/resources/Engineering%20Taxonomy.html. They have developed quite a bit of material to assist those that want to use their approach.

"Do students in your program get the experiences that will help them develop into engineers? What is the balance between theory and application?  Evaluating your program using a taxonomy can help you answer these questions.  The resources below can help you to address these issues. 

The Engineering Taxonomy is built from Bloom's Taxonomy.  Although taxonomies, like any tool, can be misused, the Engineering Taxonomy is a tool that helps instructors learn about, frame, organize, and align learning outcomes in courses and programs.  Taxonomies can be broadly applied to many courses since they are generally independent of specific curricular content. If you teach engineering, the material below can help you develop and evaluate enginering courses and programs."

Check out this interesting Blog our national colleagues are working on:

http://higheredconsortium.blogspot.com/ 

 

 

Educating the Many, Not the Few: A Digital Model for Change

This event will be webcast live on Tuesday, April 13, 12:30 pm ET and archived on the Berkman Center for Internet and Society's  site shortly after.

Shai Reshef's session will address barriers and bridges to education, the impact of the Internet on learning platforms, University of the People (UoPeople) and the challenges he faces implementing this model. How are students of different cultures able to teach each other? How can a free university be effective? What is the impact of the freedom of information over the internet? What does UoPeople and similar education models mean for traditional brick & mortar universities? For more information on UoPeople, visit www.uopeople.org.

For more information on the webinar see: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2010/04/reshef

Recently, I attended a conference called "Expanding the Circle: Creating an Inclusive Environment in Higher Education for LGBTQ Students and Studies". Cosponsored by various organizations including The Association for Colleges and Universities Religious Affairs (ACURA), Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU), Campus Climate Index, Global Fund for Women, among others, the conference debuted in its first year to, as the title suggests, creating a welcoming, inclusive space for LGBTQ students on campuses.

 

My interest specifically lies within the intersection of spirituality and sexuality in students' lives and the often divisive nature that LGBTQ students who are religious or spiritual face within the LGBTQ community. To some, the attitude from nonreligious LGBTQ individuals is "why would you practice a faith that has discriminated, ostracized, and punished GLBTQ people because of their sexuality?" To those who are devoted to a spiritual/religious practice, the response may be that they have found their niche within their particular religious denomination which happens to be progressive, welcoming, and accepting of all. In most cases, it can be difficult enough for students to recognize and accept their sexual identities. At the same time, remaining true to their particular faith traditions can alienate them from the very community they rely on for social and emotional support.

 

In my work within the Center for Ethics and Religious Affairs, I have seen religious/spiritual organizations approach the issue of sexual orientation from a variety of levels of acceptance or prejudice for LGBTQ individuals. There is no easy answer to this age-old dilemma. The conference exposed the challenges we, as staff and faculty, encounter in supporting and welcoming these students wholeheartedly. Scotty McLennan, Dean for Religious Life at Stanford University, pointed out that we need to be careful about our own misguided liberal assumptions that LGBTQ students will want to be or should be liberal or have liberal views. There are LGBTQ students who practice within a very conservative, orthodox tradition and would not have it any other way. Their faith represents the foundation of who they are and emphasizes the importance of family and community---the very thing they risk losing if they come out. It's the "Gay or God" debacle where there exists antireligious sentiment in the LGBTQ community and antigay sentiment in many religious communities.

 

The spiritual development of our students is as critical as any other developmental milestone. Within our multi-faith facility, CERA provides an important outlet for spiritual wellness and offering students access to discovering multiple levels of identity. For spiritual/religious LGBTQ students, both identities are part of their story. If they dismiss either one, how do they deal with questions of life and death, ethics, morality, sex, daily behaviors? Wrestling with multiple identities can be challenging, but it is not impossible. Encouraging our students to find the similarities across communities whether they be religious, LGBTQ, racial, and/or cultural can help shape them into confident leaders. And, by including a spiritual component to their education, students can ground themselves in religious/spiritual practices which can ultimately help them navigate ethical decision making---becoming strong, authentic leaders in their communities.

 

The diversity of the student body at colleges and universities lends itself to ensuring that higher education institutions like Penn State raise awareness of spirituality and its contribution in a holistic education. One of the goals of the Expanding the Circle conference was to raise awareness of the importance of LGBTQ resources on campuses and, as they write, while "some colleges and universities have been incorporating LGBTQ studies for decades, courses and programs continue to be pockets of innovation, rather than models of inclusion for all of higher education." Clearly, we have our work cut out for us. But, conferences like this help remind us that support and resources do exist to make it happen.

I have been inspired by Glen's curriculum map and by Allison' efforts to create a rubric reflecting the connections between learning outcomes and programming.  As a result I am working with the Health Promotion and Wellness staff to do something similar with our services, peer education training classes, and frequently offered programming events.  The goal is to use the cocurricular learning outcomes as a guide for developing & shaping health promotion programming and to ensure that our programs and services are aligned with the direction of the division and the institution.  I am also hoping to develop health-specific learning outcomes that can be used to help assess the impact of our 'programming' efforts.