How to Choose a College
Going to College
Official Rules and Policies
GLBT Organizations, Offices and Resource Centers
Students Speak for Themselves
GLBT Studies, Faculty, and Staff
Just as you want to find other students who are GLBT, it can be very affirming to find and talk to faculty and staff at a school who are GLBT. Every school has GLBT faculty; it’s just a matter of whether they make their sexual orientation public. Or like many in the academic world, they keep their sexuality a secret for a whole variety of reasons. You can find faculty and/or staff who are out several ways. If the school has a commission on sexual orientation, or a related topic such as a ‘diversity committee,’ contact the faculty who serve on that commission or committee. If a faculty members serve on a school commission for GLBT students, then they are obviously at least somewhat friendly towards GLBT students, so that would be a good place to start.
You can also go to the student group or resource center (if applicable) and ask if they have any lists of GLBT-friendly faculty. Since these lists are often confidential, they may not be comfortable revealing information from that list without talking to you first. One advantage of talking to GLBT and gay-friendly faculty is that they often have been within one school community for many years, and can speak to a ‘gay history’ of the school. They can give you some insight about how the campus is now around GLBT issues; but they can also give you some idea what the campus was like five, ten, twenty or more years ago. Sometimes a school’s history can give you some idea of what to expect four years down the road when you are nearing your college graduation.
If being GLBT is something that you want to make an active part of your college education, there are some schools that offer courses in the rapidly expanding field of gay and lesbian studies (sometimes called queer studies, thought, or theory). Some schools have this as an entire department (i.e., Department of Gay and Lesbian Studies), and some schools have a collection of gay studies classes under another department, such as Anthropology, Gender Studies or Sociology. Some other schools have GLBT courses throughout the range of other courses that they offer (i.e., a class on gay business, or a course about GLBT language). To find out whether a school offers these courses, simply go over the school’s course guide, and look for classes that have "gay" in the title of the class, or address GLBT issues. While each school has a unique way of organizing and cataloging classes, the question becomes how much support does the school give to students who wish to pursue study in gay studies. If gay studies is of little or no interest to you, then this may be of no direct consequence to you, but the fact that the school has gay studies could be an indicator that the school is gay friendly. If you have a penchant for social sciences such as anthropology, sociology, or gender studies, and want to incorporate them into the exciting field of gay studies, then you might give preference to a school that offers courses in gay studies.
