Thursday August 24, 2006
All
|
General
Thursday August 24, 2006
Is NCSU the N.C. College Least Accepting of Gay Students?
The Princeton Review's just published 2007 edition of The Best 361 Colleges ranks NCSU 17th out of 20 colleges where Alternative Lifestyles Are Not an Alternative (or, to put it bluntly, a campus atmosphere that discriminates against homosexuals). It was the only college from North Carolina on the list.
Here is the full list:
1 University of Notre Dame
2 Hampden-Sydney College
3 Brigham Young University (UT)
4 Wheaton College (IL)
5 College of the Holy Cross
6 Baylor University
7 Texas A&M University-College Station
8 Grove City College
9 University of Tennessee--Knoxville
10 Samford University
11 Seton Hall University
12 Valparaiso University
13 Pepperdine University
14 Washington and Lee University
15 Miami University
16 Trinity College (CT)
17 North Carolina State University
18 University of Utah
19 Calvin College
20 Providence College
So is NCSU the least gay tolerant campus in North Carolina? To come up with their ranking The Princeton Review interviews 115,000 students at 361 top colleges. Their ranking is an opinion poll and not based on quantitative data. Only 361 colleges are included. Students at 23 North Carolina colleges were interviewed. There are at least another 30 N.C. colleges that are not included. Any one of those 30 or more colleges could have students who believe their campus is less tolerant to gay students than NCSU.
In the profile for NCSU on The Princeton Review website (it is free but you will have to register to view it) there is a section where they pick particularly apt quotes by NCSU students. Here they say:
Of course, at a school this large "there are so many different types of
people that everyone pretty much fits in." As one student puts it, "NC
State prides itself on diversity. A walk through campus would prove
this."
It is a shame that a school whose students claim "prides itself on diversity" is perceived by those same students to be a place that discriminates against homosexuals. Is it the least tolerant in the state? Maybe not. But of the top 23 schools in the state, NCSU certainly has the worst reputation. Let's all be more accepting and supportive of the BLGT community on campus and, hopefully, we may begin to attract and retain more alternative students. Then maybe next year or the year after, the Princeton Review will find that our students think this a campus that doesn't discriminate against Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian and Transgendered students.
Posted by orion Aug 24 2006, 09:01:20 PM EDT Permalink Comments [3]
Trackback URL: http://blogs.lib.ncsu.edu/Orionseyes/entry/is_ncsu_the_n_c
Comments:
Wow, that scares me a bit...
Funny, I would have put Brigham Young as #1.
Wow, that scares me a bit...
Funny, I would have put Brigham Young as #1.
I don't know much about the situation at Brigham Young, but when I saw that Notre Dame was #1, I started searching for more information about the situation there. It seems that "the university?s gay and lesbian students were tired of living in the dark ages" and declared 2003-04 ?The Year of the Gay? at Notre Dame. As a result of the activities and publicity from that Year, the Notre Dame web site this year lists a web page for The Core Council for Gay and Lesbian Students. All 12 members names are given. It is co-chaired by a student and the Asst. Vice President for Student Affairs. Eight of the members are students and the remaining three are a Counseling Center psychologist, and the directors of the Gender Relations Center and the Campus Ministries. That seems like progress to me.
Compare this visible presence to the NCSU website. There is a BGLA, a student organization, LGBT Services run by a graduate student advisor, and the GLBT Subcommittee of the University Diversity Advisory Committee. There is no list of names for this group and the only other reference to them from the April 2006 UDAC minutes:
"GLBT Subcommittee Activities
A statement of affirmation regarding Sexual Orientation, Gender Equity, and Gender Expression is the result of an initiative put forth by the GLBT subcommittee, a subcommittee of the Diversity Advisory Committee. Dr. Picart requested feedback regarding the statement."
So, just from a comparison of websites, the worst school for alternative lifestyles, Notre Dame, has a very visible Core Council with key campus administrators present at the table with students. Meanwhile, the NCSU website lists a university subcommittee, a student services office, and a student organization. The only name available from all three of these is the graduate student in the services office.
Posted by Orion's Eyes on September 22, 2006 at 09:19 AM EDT #
Post a Comment: