IU named GLBT-friendly campus

IU-Bloomington has earned Campus Pride’s perfect five-star rating on the LGBT-Friendly Campus Climate Index in the results released this month.

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Student Support Services fills out a survey each year that evaluates policies and resources in eight areas: LGBT inclusion, support and institutional commitment, academic life, student life, housing, campus safety, counseling and health, and recruitment and retention efforts.

“GLBT issues are part of the diversity dialogue on campus,” said Doug Bauder, coordinator of GLBT Student Support Services. “We have a widespread approach to providing support to gay students.”

Carol Fischer, GLBT Student Support Services office supervisor, and her team worked with other offices on campus like the Office of Admissions and Residential Programs and Services to gather the information needed to complete the survey.

Only 33 of 291 institutions that sent in the survey were given the five-star rating.

In 2010, IU received 4.5 stars out of 5 on the Campus Climate Index.
Increased attention to transgender issues, like the addition of gender-neutral bathrooms and an independent studies program, and outreach to new students this summer improved IU’s rating.

“I was able to be at student orientation every day,” said senior Dustin Nisley, a social work major and GLBT student support services’s social work intern. “It allowed people to have that consistency, (to feel) comfortable coming to talk to me.”

GLBT Student Support Services works to have a presence in other offices around campus. In the next year, they hope to increase visibility of its programs and continue outreach to both GLBT and ally students.

“We want to connect with everybody,” said Kate Boeree, a second-year master’s student in the library science and GLBT SSS library intern.

—Kate Thacker