For the first time in its history, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Student Support Services Office has a graduate assistant.
Danielle Hernandez, a second-year Ph.D. student, started just a couple of weeks ago, but she has long been serving the LGBT community.
“This is the dream GA,” Hernandez said of her position with the office. “I finally have an excuse to get involved in the community.”
Graduate assistants serve in support roles around campus and can receive funding in exchange for their work.
Without funding for her research, Hernandez reached a point where she would take any graduate assistant spot. She said she was fortunate to find one that aligns so well with her research and personal interests.
“She’s able to conduct some programs we’ve been trying to get off the ground,” GLBT Office Director Doug Bauder said. “And just getting to know her, she’ll come up with programs of her own.”
Bauder said the position was made possible by funding from the Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Affairs.
“I’m really just building my own way here,” Hernandez said. “It’s wonderful to have that kind of freedom.”
Hernandez plans to make the office’s Brown Bag Speaker Series a more regular event with an intersectional focus. Speaker interest ranges from the Gender Studies and English departments to the School of Education to Middle Way House.
She also reached out to Terry Galloway, author of “MEAN Little deaf Queer,” and said her lofty goal is to bring in speakers like gender-nonconforming author Kate Bornstein and transgender rights activist Mara Keisling.
On a more personal level, Hernandez said she looks forward to speaking with students who come into the office and learning about their experiences in education. Hernandez is pursuing a Ph.D. in school psychology in the School of Education with hopes of making a difference for K-12 students in gender and sexual minorities.
She came to IU from Gettysburg College, where she graduated with a degree in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
It was at Gettysburg that she learned of the varying middle and high school experiences of her LGBT friends. Some of their stories only vaguely resembled hers at a Staten Island Catholic school where LGBT students and teachers often were overlooked and ignored.
It was at Gettysburg that she stood in a tiny, sweaty women’s center for the first meeting of the campus LGBT group ALLies.
It was at Gettysburg that she kicked off her freshman year as the vice president of ALLies and participated in long talks about policy changes and how the group wanted to identify — a space for community gatherings, a collective of activists, or a little of both?
“That’s what I really like over here,” Hernandez said. She said the GLBT office is both and more, with several groups coming together under one roof.
Outside of her time in the GLBT office, Hernandez said she plans to work with Grandview Elementary School on inclusiveness workshops for teachers.
She said she hopes to fill holes in the sparse school psychology literature on LGBT issues and looks forward to relating dense articles in a hands-on manner.
“One of the beautiful things about school psychology is making yourself understandable to people,” Hernandez said.
