Queering Inclusive Excellence: a Currere Exploration of Self, Curriculum, and Creating Change As a Founding Lgbtq Office Director

MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School

Certificate for Approving the Dissertation

We hereby approve the Dissertation

Bonnie Marie Meyer

Candidate for the Degree

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

______Dr. Thomas S. Poetter, Director

______Dr. Denise Taliaferro Baszile, Reader

______Dr. Joel Malin, Reader

______Dr. James Shiveley, Graduate School Representative

ABSTRACT

QUEERING INCLUSIVE EXCELLENCE: A CURRERE EXPLORATION OF SELF, CURRICULUM, AND CREATING CHANGE AS A FOUNDING LGBTQ OFFICE DIRECTOR

Bonnie Marie Meyer

Pinar (1975) wrote that part of the obligation of currere is to speak from where one lives, making clear this biographic basis (p. 5). In this study, I employ the currere method of critical reflection to better understand my educational and institutional journey as a founding director of an LGBTQ office on a public university in the Southeast operating under an inclusive excellence model. Through currere, I explore educational experiences as a founding director as part of this narrative, my journey through the narrative, and, ultimately, the study of one institution’s process in creating and developing an LGBTQ office. Through a series of vignettes, I use currere to better understand my curricular journey of working with an inclusive excellence model to integrate LGBTQ inclusion throughout an institution. This study details my experiences as a founding LGBTQ director through a conscientious engagement with each of the four steps of currere. I use currere to return to the past in order to take note of the decisions that were made, the frameworks that were used, and the various data sources representing conversations, moments, and challenges that occurred over a seven-year period of building an LGBTQ office. Through currere vignettes, I explore culture, education, and policy change through pop up drag shows, an LGBTQ-themed study abroad program, nationally branded food concepts, and driving policy change through programming.

QUEERING INCLUSIVE EXCELLENCE: A CURRERE EXPLORATION OF SELF, CURRICULUM, AND CREATING CHANGE AS A FOUNDING LGBTQ OFFICE DIRECTOR

A DISSERTATION

Presented to the Faculty of

Miami University in partial

fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Educational Leadership

Bonnie M. Meyer

The Graduate School Miami University Oxford, Ohio

2020

Dissertation Director: Dr. Thomas S. Poetter

Bonnie Marie Meyer

2020

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ……...…………………………………………….….……………….i Dedication………………………...………………………………………………………iv Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………v

CHAPTER ONE – FOUNDING THE LGBTQ OFFICE…………………………………….1 Situating the Self………………………………………………………………………….1 Situating the Problem……………………………………………………………………..3 Situating the Case…………………………………………………………………………6 Currere……...……………………………………………………………………………..7 Inclusive Excellence as a Framework for Building an LGBTQ Office…………………...8

CHAPTER TWO – THE ROLE OF LGBTQ OFFICES IN QUEERING CAMPUS ….…12 CULTURE A Culmination of My Life’s Experiences as an LGBTQ Director………………………12 Beginnings……...………………………………………………………………………..14 A Queer (Self) Study: An Overview of Setting and Culture……...…………..…………15 A Brief Background on LGBTQ Resource Centers and Offices……...…………………17 Supporting LGBTQ College Students……...……………………………………………18 Role of LGBTQ Resource Centers and Offices……...……………………….……….…20 Campus Pride Index: One Tool for LGBTQ Inclusion……...………………...…………22 Queering Inclusive Excellence……...……………………………………………...……24

CHAPTER THREE – QUEERING, CURRERE, AND CURRICULUM…….....…………26 Enter a Global Pandemic……...…………………………………………………………27 To Run the Course Through Quarantine: Resituating the Study……...…………………28 Queering, Currere, and Curriculum……...………………………………………………29 Now What? Moving Forward Despite Covid-19………………………………………...30

CHAPTER FOUR –POP UP PRIDE: A TOOL FOR VISIBILITY AND DISRUPTION...32 Representation Matters……...…………………………………………………………...32 Pop Up Pride……...…………………………………………………………………...…34 Performative Disruption. ……...…………………………………………………………35 Disruption With Drag……...…………………………………………….………………37 Future Disruptions……...……………………………………………………..…………40

CHAPTER FIVE – THE BATTLE OF THE NATIONALLY BRANDED FOOD……..…43 CONCEPT: SPACE, INSTITUTIONAL COMMITMENT, AND LGBTQ INCLUSION What’s in a Space? ……...…………………………….…………………………………44 Curricular Implications of the NBFC……...……….……………………………………46 Inclusive Excellence and NBFC……...…………………………………………….……47 Situating the Issue……...…………………………………………………………...……48 Return to Curriculum……...…………………………………………………………..…50 To Forever Run the Course……...…………………………………………….…………51 Advocacy, Allyship, and Resistance……...………………………………...……………55

CHAPTER SIX – LGBTQ EXPERIENCES OF EXILE, RESISTANCE, AND..…………56 INCLUSION – AN LGBTQ STUDY ABROAD EXPERIENCE TO AMSTERDAM, BRUSSELS, AND PARIS Establishing the Groundwork……...…………………………..…………...……………57 Considerations for LGBTQ Study Abroad Programs Programs……...……………….…60 Designing an LGBTQ Inclusive Study Abroad Program……...……………………...…61 Designing the Course……...………………………………….……………….…………63 Revising the Experience……...……………………………………………….…………64 Traveling with LGBTQ Students……...…………………………...………….…………66

CHAPTER SEVEN - AN ONGOING JOURNEY IN THE FIGHT FOR……...…………..67 TRANSGENDER INCLUSION, EQUITY, AND JUSTICE Trans Inclusion and the Campus Pride Index ……...……………………………………68 A Starting Point.…………...... ……………………………………………….…………69

Awareness and Visibility……...…………………………………………….………...…71 Driving Culture to Influence Policy Change……...…………………………..…………72 Programming Drives Culture……...…………………………………………..…………75 Culture Impacts Policies and Practices……...…………………..…………….…………75

CHAPTER EIGHT – REFLECTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS……...... …………78 Looking Back……...………………….……………………………………….…………78 Looking Forward……...………………….………..………………………….…………80 Living in the Present…...………………….………………………………….……….…83 Lasting Change……………...………………….………………………….……..…...…85

APPENDIX A – AN LGBTQ INCLUSIVE EXCELLENCE SCORECARD……...….……88

APPENDIX B – LGBTQ STUDY ABROAD ITINERARY……...………………….………90

BIBLIOGRAPHY……...………………….……………………………………….………….108

iii

DEDICATION

I dedicate this dissertation to my students. I am inspired daily by their activism and willingness to use the power of their voices to stand with others, their constant bravery in the face of adversity, and their creative, driven spirits even when surrounded by darkness. They are the reason for this work.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I don’t even know where to begin with my committee. I entered this process on a final extension from the university after serious health issues and life disruptions. I am eternally grateful for this team, who joined my process and advised me through to the end. I am the educator I am because of the Department of Educational Leadership, and it is because of the EDL faculty that I achieve this lifelong aspiration. Thank you to Dr. Denise Taliaferro Baszile, from whom I learned how to identify the fire within and use it in productive ways. Thank you to Dr. Joel Malin and to Dr. James Shiveley, for joining this effort and providing guidance through this process. Lastly, to my chair, Dr. Tom Poetter. Words could never express my gratitude for your mentorship, guidance, friendship, and support these last many years. Thank you for never giving up on me and for helping me once again believe in myself and the power of words. I am forever grateful for my work family and colleagues at the institution. Though we have much work to do in the realm of supporting our most marginalized students, I am grateful to work with a team of people who are genuinely committed to this work and our students. Of special note, is gratitude for my friend and colleague Dr. Dannie Moore. For the countless conversations, pep talks, brainstorming sessions, and reminders—thank you for your friendship, your confidence in me, and your support. I can’t believe as I end this chapter, your chapter at our institution is ending. Thank you for being a big part of the successes in my journey. Achieving this goal has been over a decade in the making. When I began this journey, it required that I move two hours away from my kids to begin my coursework. They made incredible sacrifices over the years as we constantly traveled four hours roundtrip in order to spend time together. Over the years they have been patient supporters and cheerleaders behind my work. The best job I will ever have is being a mom to Alyssa and Kyle. There is no doubt that I am closing this chapter of my journey because of the love and support of my wife, Katie. Over the years, she has taken on so many additional burdens in order to support this work, both through this dissertation journey and when I am pulled away to offer student support. She is my confident, my partner, and a sounding board for all of my ideas. I am so grateful to navigate this life with her by my side.

CHAPTER ONE – FOUNDING THE LGBTQ OFFICE

Schools are critical institutions for maintaining or challenging the dominant ideology, and teachers occupy the most critical positions in schools. To control teachers is to control the dominant ideology. Putting the history of discrimination against gay and lesbian teachers in the context of a broader education history, it becomes apparent that human rights for gay and lesbian citizens cannot be gained in full until gay and lesbian teachers are fully accepted. It follows that to free teachers from antigay discrimination is to take a crucial step in dismantling homophobia in our society. (Graves, 2009, p. xvii)

Situating the Self The afternoon I received the phone call offering my current position as the founding director of a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning (LGBTQ1) office in a midsize public university in the southeast, it felt as though the culmination of my life’s experiences converged into a position that was made for me. I was ecstatic. When I accepted the position, I was managing a small bar my wife and I owned in a nearby city as well as adjunct teaching at my alma mater about an hour away. Prior to meeting my wife and moving to her city, I was a fulltime doctoral student and teaching associate at said alma mater, where I first threw myself into LGBTQ work, got involved in campus LGBTQ groups and initiatives, and volunteered in the greater community. In my academic work, I concentrated all of my research and writing on LGBTQ policies and practices, particularly in public schools. Though this work was a relatively new field for me at the time, my passion was fueled by rage and a desire to learn how to challenge the extraordinary homophobia and transphobia present in communities and schools. About a decade before, as a high school English teacher, I taught in two different districts, in different regions of the same state that were far from welcoming or inclusive to the LGBTQ community. In both districts, in two very different communities, in each of the five years I taught sophomores, juniors, and seniors, there were students who approached me to discuss fears about acceptance, and who ultimately came out to me as being part of the LGBTQ

1 I use “LGBTQ” here as an umbrella for people of all sexual and gender minorities. I understand the limitations of this language. I use “LGBTQ” throughout because that is the language that has been used thus far at my institution, including the office name. When discussing identities not represented by LGBTQ, such as asexual, I will state the identity and provide explanation. 1

community. Though I had no experience supporting LGBTQ students prior to becoming an educator, my undergraduate teacher education program prepared me to work with diverse students and I welcomed the opportunity to promote equity in my classroom. However, at this time, most schools were not welcoming places for LGBTQ youth (Kosciw, Diaz, & Greytak, 2008). Very few students were out in either school district that I taught in. The students who approached me usually feared isolation and backlash and chose not to tell parents or friends. Their worries were not unfounded as it was not uncommon to hear casual homophobic comments made in the halls or even in the break room by other teachers, staff, or administrators. As an English teacher, creating a sense of community was important to me. It was no secret that I supported all of my students and celebrated their differences, but in both districts there was little space for LGBTQ students to be out. There were no out LGBTQ teachers in either district I taught in. Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s in a conservative, rural community in Northwest Ohio, I was relatively unaware of the experiences of LGBTQ people. Though I had always questioned my own sexual orientation, I had no words or understanding to describe feeling as if I could be attracted to more than just one gender. The only representation of LGBTQ people I remember from my childhood was television coverage of the HIV and AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and the violence LGBTQ people faced through stories like Matthew Shepherd’s. It wasn’t until I began my undergraduate studies that I knew people who were out and open about their LGBTQ identity. It was at that point that I began to understand it was possible to have a sexual orientation other than straight and that the feelings I remembered from childhood could be identified as coming into an understanding of my own bisexuality. At that point in my life, I was newly-married and my daughter was a toddler. I was focused on continuing my education while somehow managing to pay the bills and be a good mother and partner. It was years later, when our marriage fell apart for unrelated reasons, that I understood the fear and isolation LGBTQ people can face when forced out of the closet before they are ready. After our divorce was final, my ex-husband created false accusations and outed me to my school administrators and my community. This was my first experience with the sort of bias aimed at LGBTQ teachers in schools. The harassment I experienced came in the form of hate filled letters, death threats, vandalism, job discrimination, and sex discrimination. I resigned my teaching position mid-year and a few months later moved two hours away from my hometown to

return to my alma mater to pursue my doctorate. I needed to gain the knowledge and resources to challenge heterosexism and create inclusive spaces for LGBTQ people in educational settings. I was determined to never again allow a person or an institution to strip away my power because of my sexual orientation. Fifteen years later, there are few civil rights protections for LGBTQ people at the federal level. The Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) “2018 State Equality Index” found that only 22 states provide comprehensive civil rights protections that include both sexual orientation and gender identity for housing, and only 21 provide inclusive protections for public accommodation (Warbelow, Oakley, and Kutney, 2018). The HRC’s findings also resulted in 28 states rated in the lowest category, issuing a “high priority to achieve basic equality” (Warbelow, Oakley, and Kutney, 2018). According to the HRC’s ratings, in each of these states advocates work toward achieving base level equity initiatives such as statewide LGBTQ inclusive non-discrimination policies, bans on conversion therapy for youth, and laws to protect youth in schools. Of these 28 states, 11 are located in the Southeast United States. The state that I currently live and work in is included within these 11 states.

Situating the Problem It is no secret that LGBTQ issues are divisive in our country, especially where students and education are concerned. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), there are approximately 3,000 4-year colleges and universities in the United States (Digest of Education Statistics, 2019). Though the number of colleges and universities with staffed support services for LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff increases yearly, to date only approximately 385 provide institutionalized support for LGBTQ students and, of these, only approximately 175 are stand-alone LGBTQ offices or centers (Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Professionals, 2018). Seven years ago when my institution founded its stand-alone office, it was only the second in the state to fund a fulltime position to serve the LGBTQ community. This move was bold. Few other departments have to justify why they are appropriate, or are challenged to the point of defunding to the extent that some LGBTQ offices do. Yet, in my work it has happened on more than one occasion that a person visits the office to express their frustrations about having no office for white, cisgender, heterosexual students.

Opposition to the legitimacy of LGBTQ offices has existed since the University of Michigan became the first institution in the country to institutionalize LGBT services when it established the Human Sexuality Office (HSO) in 1971 (Burns, 2017). At the University of Michigan, the HSO was created after student leaders asked to host a statewide LGBTQ conference in their student union and were denied the request to use university space by the president who challenged the educational validity of the conference and stated that because homosexual activity was illegal, the conference would necessitate the presence of the police (Burns, 2017). Though LGBTQ inclusion efforts on campus have increased and improved drastically over the years (Rankin et. al., 2010), challenges to the validity and appropriateness of tax dollars used to support LGBTQ students are still quite common. In 2016, lawmakers in Tennessee passed HB 2248 requiring the reallocation of all funding for the Office for Diversity and Inclusion, including the University of Tennessee’s (UT) Pride Center. This move prohibited the use of other funds to operate the office for one year (Jaschik, 2016). In 2013, Texas A&M’s Student Senate approved a “Religious Funding Exemption Bill” allowing students to opt out of having any portion of their student fees go to support LGBTQ work on campus (Moch, 2013). Since 2013, Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRA) have swept across the nation at the federal and state levels. Twenty-one states currently have enacted some version(s) of an RFRA (“State Religious Freedom Acts,” 2017). After the 2016 presidential election, promises to further regulate the rights of LGBTQ individuals were made and delivered from newly-elected and appointed government officials, presenting the very real threat of continued legalized discrimination. Since 2016, the Trump administration has taken aim at the LGBTQ community, rolling back all federal level, Obama-era protections for LGBTQ people, including LGBTQ students (HRC, 2019; National Center for Transgender Equality, 2019; GLAAD, 2019, GLSEN 2018). Since taking office, the Trump administration’s attack on LGBTQ students has included: rescinding Title IX protections for transgender students (Thompson, 2018) and ending the DACA program, which protected 36,000 LGBTQ DREAMers (GLAAD, 2019). The Department of Education rolled back the Office for Civil Rights efforts (Roth, E. & Medley, S., 2018), including removing “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as terms used to track bullying (GLAAD, 2019). In October 2019, during what is also LGBTQ History Month, the Supreme

Court of the United States (SCOTUS) heard oral arguments in cases on workplace discrimination challenging whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act applies to LGBTQ people (Liptak, A. & Peters, J.W., 2019). In my state, which has some of the strongest RFRA legislation in the country, legislators regularly begin session by considering laws that limit the rights of LGBTQ people, particularly transgender students in schools. GLSEN’s 2017 National School Climate Survey found that for the first time in a decade, the rates of LGBTQ youth experiencing harassment and victimization did not decline. Dr. Joseph Kosciw, GLSEN’s Chief Research & Strategy Officer said, We’ve seen great progress on dismantling homophobia and transphobia over the past decade, and increasing access to LGBTQ-inclusive supports in K-12 schools. Unfortunately, in 2017, that continued progress has slowed, and in some cases, we see no change at all. Worse still, our findings indicate that many schools have become even more hostile towards transgender and gender nonconforming youth. (GLSEN, 2018)

The survey also found that while 87.3% of LGBTQ students still experience some form of harassment in school, youth who attend schools with welcoming and inclusive policies have better mental health and academic outcomes (GLSEN, 2017). Despite the potential controversy, the case for institutionalizing support services and programming for LGBTQ students continues to grow. A 2013 study by the PEW Research Center found that Americans grew dramatically more accepting of LGBTQ people from 2003-2013, though many LGBTQ individuals reported feeling continued discrimination (Pew Research Center, p.4). The same study found that with the growing social acceptance, LGBTQ people disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity at around age 20 (p. 47). According to the HRC’s 2016 report, Growing up LGBT in America, “9 in 10 LGBT youth say they are out to their close friends and 64% say they are out to their classmates” (HRC, 2016). However, there continues to be a lack of research on the experiences of LGBTQ people in higher education. In my work, research often takes place through phone calls with directors of the other offices and centers in my state, comparing notes. All of our institutions have seen an increase in the number of LGBTQ students. In early conversations, we each estimated that 15% of our student population is part of the LGBTQ community. In 2015, my second year at the institution,

campus post-enrollment data revealed that approximately 14% of first year, first semester students self-disclosed as “not heterosexual,” so this data seemed accurate. However, the two most recent 2019 data sources show that approximately 25% of my institution’s overall student population is part of the LGBTQ community. Numerous students have reported to me that this generation of LGBTQ student seeks resources such as the Campus Pride Index when deciding where to continue their studies, and they are less willing to consider an institution that does not explicitly support the LGBTQ community. Universities with institutionalized support of LGBTQ offices and professional staff devoted to serving the LGBTQ student body will have the edge in recruiting and retaining this new generation of student.

Situating the Case When my institution made the decision to create a position for an LGBTQ director, it was only the second university in the state to fund a fulltime position to serve the LGBTQ community. At that point, there had been some sense of an LGBTQ presence on campus for years. The student gay, straight, transgender alliance (GSTA) had been active since the late 1990s, even participating in the March on Washington in the spring of 2000. The group for faculty, staff, and administration had been meeting since about 2005, though they met secretly in off campus locations for the first five years. The two groups advocated for initiatives on campus, including creating programming like an annual drag show and advocating for (and achieving) domestic partner benefits in 2008. Both groups eventually advocated for an office or center. Then, a group of dedicated student advocates made progress. In 2013, a couple of things happened that led the institution to create a position. First, a group of students researched extensively the need for an LGBTQ office on campus. They presented this information to the Dean of Students, Student Government Association (SGA), and generally any administrator they could get five minutes with. The SGA picked up the issue and the president, an ally to the LGBTQ community, supported it. After some heated discussion, the SGA passed a resolution in April, 2013, calling for the university to create a fulltime position to support the LGBTQ campus community. The new university administration was the second contributing factor to the decision. The institution had just hired a new university president as well as a new vice president for student affairs. The former president had served for 15 years and the new president had a bold vision for

making the university more inclusive. The new vice president for student affairs valued and engaged in DEI work. When the SGA passed the resolution to create a director’s position and an office to serve LGBTQ students, the administration listened to the students and moved forward with the decision. A committee of faculty, staff, and students was formed to create the position details and a search committee created the posting. The charge of the director was to work with campus partners to create a campus environment where LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff could live boldly in their identities and thrive. The position posted in late May and in August, I was hired as the founding director of the LGBTQ office. Within three years of the office’s founding, the institution was recognized by College Choice as one of the top 50 in the United States for LGBTQ inclusiveness.

Dissertation Research Study and Design In the months prior to beginning my position, I reviewed best practices and researched universities ranked nationally for LGBTQ inclusiveness. At this point I had co-chaired the regional pride festival for two consecutive years and I felt confident with my content knowledge, programing ideas, and overall understanding of regional and statewide LGBTQ issues and concerns. However, building an office on a university campus is quite different than teaching, organizing, or community building about and for LGBTQ issues. There was no how-to guide for building an LGBTQ office, so I was left wondering where I would begin. I considered many questions: What actually IS the role of the LGBTQ office on campus? Whom does/should the office serve? What do best practices actually look like in practice, from the beginning, on this particular campus with this particular community? What are the most important steps in establishing an office? What must be considered when making these decisions? How can I ensure that the office is inclusive for all students? This study draws upon my experiences as an LGBTQ person, advocate, professional, educator, and founding director of an LGBTQ office. By drawing on my journey as a professional in this field, this study aims to uncover the answers to these questions. In this role, I will serve as the researcher, the practitioner, and the scholar, using the method of currere to better understand the case of how one midsize, metropolitan university in the southeast built an office charged with creating an inclusive campus for LGBTQ people.

Currere John Dewey wrote about the intertwined nature of personal experiences and learning (Dewey, 1916, p. 50). As the founding director of the office, I have been involved in some capacity for nearly every decision made that impacts the institutional support for LGBTQ students on our campus. I have a unique perspective and story to tell as a person who was deeply involved in shifting university policies and procedures to align with best practices for creating a campus where LGBTQ people feel they belong. This study uses currere to explore my pedagogical processes and experiences through the journey of building the office. Pinar (1975) wrote that part of the obligation of currere is to speak from where one lives, making clear this biographic basis (p. 5). I employ the currere method of critical reflection to better understand my story as part of the narrative, my journey through the narrative, and, ultimately, the study of one institution’s process in creating and developing an LGBTQ office. Working through a conscientious engagement with each step of currere requires a return to the past to take note of the decisions that were made, the frameworks that were used, and the various data sources representing conversations, moments, and challenges that occurred over a seven- year period of building an LGBTQ office. It means a return to all archival data—planning and reflective notes, programs, annual plans, curriculum development, university data sources, notes from students and colleagues, and photographs, and it requires deep engagement with those moments through the method of currere. Currere requires that we “slow down, to remember even re-enter the past, and to meditatively imagine the future” (Pinar, 1975, p. 4). Through currere, I come to a greater understanding of the creation of the LGBTQ office through my own becoming as a professional in the field. Through currere, I bring together the seven years of building an LGBTQ office and uncover some ways in which the LGBTQ office may have contributed to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) mission of the university and the transformational impact to the region. Currere also reveals missed opportunities.

Inclusive Excellence as a Framework for Building an LGBTQ Office The purpose of this study is to carefully consider the founding of one LGBTQ office under an Inclusive Excellence (IE) model, in a state where LGBTQ students are not represented under the IE model, and who are not protected under statewide anti-discrimination legislation.

According to Williams (2005), Within the IE Change Model, diversity is a key component of a comprehensive strategy for achieving institutional excellence—which includes, but is not limited to, the academic excellence of all students in attendance and concerted efforts to educate all students to succeed in a diverse society and equip them with sophisticated intercultural skills. (p. 3)

This organizational change framework provides a model for integrating DEI efforts through all areas of an institution, considering access and equity, campus climate, diversity in the curriculum, and student learning and development (Williams, 2005, p. 4). In this study, I am interested in the case of one LGBTQ office and its role under an IE model on one university’s campus. As the founding director of an LGBTQ office at a university that uses an IE model, I wondered how this framework impacted the operations of offices across campus. Under the leadership of the new president, the IE model was introduced as a framework to guide DEI initiatives. The president planned to hire a person to lead IE initiatives, but in the meantime, divisions, departments, and individual offices were charged with understanding and utilizing the IE model. As I began my work on campus, I considered the IE model. Were other offices and departments working through what IE meant for them? How would IE inform the work other student affairs DEI offices, African-American, Latino, Disability, and others were engaged in? Research left me without a how-to guide for building an LGBTQ office from the ground up, and I was situated as the “expert” on LGBTQ issues on campus. With few other options and with IE as the guiding DEI framework on our campus, I turned to IE as a tool for guiding the how, when, and where office initiatives and strategies took place. As support for LGBTQ issues grew, I began to wonder what role the LGBTQ office could play in fostering a campus community environment that encouraged cross-cultural understanding. This currere dissertation will reveal if and how one LGBTQ office contributed to the overall educational excellence of an institution and the region to promote a culture of equity and inclusion.

Chapter 1: Situating the Case This chapter provides a brief overview of the history of LGBTQ offices on university campuses, the institution in this case, and DEI and assessment tools used in this study. This

chapter further provides a basic overview of the steps that were taken to create the office, and considers the role of an LGBTQ office and my role as a researcher, practitioner, scholar, and activist.

Chapter 2: A Review of Relevant Literature In this chapter, I review relevant literature on the following topics: LGBTQ offices on university campuses Inclusive Excellence Campus Pride / Campus Pride Index

Chapter 3: Methodology and Framework - Using Currere to Queer Inclusive Excellence This chapter presents an overview of currere, currere vignettes, and the role of the inclusive excellence framework and the Campus Pride Index in the study.

Chapter 4: Vignette 1 – Pop Up Drag Shows and the Power of Visibility This chapter considers curriculum, space, and transformational change through a pop up drag show. As the name implies, this event seemingly occurs suddenly and unexpectedly. The purpose of the drag show is about visibility, disrupting space, and building community.

Chapter 5: Vignette 2 – Creating Inclusive Spaces: The Battle of the Nationally Branded Food Concept This chapter considers space as curriculum. Using curriculum and the collected stories of a Nationally Branded Food Concept’s (NBFC) attempt(s) to find a place on our campus, this chapter considers how the politics of space may or may not contribute to an inclusive environment.

Chapter 6: Vignette 3 – Exploring LGBTQ Experiences of Exile, Resistance, and Inclusion: A Study Abroad Program to Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris This study abroad program includes a two-week experience, traveling with 12 students to Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris, to study the experiences of exile, resistance, and inclusion of

LGBTQ people. This study abroad program spearheaded additional study abroad opportunities for diverse groups on campus.

Chapter 7: Vignette 4 - Let’s Talk About Gender: How Laverne Cox Changed University Policy This chapter explores strategic, curricular, and policy changes impacting gender identity and gender expression.

Chapter 8: Conclusion and Contributions This chapter considers the contributions of the study to the curriculum field, LGBTQ higher education professionals, student affairs, and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

CHAPTER TWO: THE ROLE OF LGBTQ OFFICES IN QUEERING CAMPUS CULTURE

The most damaging effect of the “NO GAY OR LESBIAN TEACHERS ALLOWED” rule is how it perpetuates stereotyping, bigotry, and fear by controlling the perceptions of the young. For the vicious cycle of prejudice and bigotry to be broken, all young people, no matter what their affectional preference…need to know adult lesbians and gays who are whole, healthy, happy, courageous, and respected by their communities. (Jennings, 1999, p.1)

A Culmination of My Life’s Experiences: Founding an LGBTQ Office Dewey (1916) wrote, “To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness” (p. 308). I knew my entire life that I wanted to be an educator. As a struggling adolescent, I had a teacher who went above and beyond the call of duty to find ways to help me find my shine. This teacher provided me one of my first experiences with the power of education, as she saw something in me that I didn’t know was there and she then took the time and care to empower me. I went on to learn more about the power and possibilities of public education through my undergraduate and graduate educations, my years as a public educator, and my experiences as an active member of my community. I also learned firsthand some ways public education can manifest as an ugly arm of society, particularly when faced with divisive social issues. It was ultimately all of these educational experiences that influenced my journey and my understanding of education as a means to enact progressive social change. The key to progressive social change lies in the hands of public education. Dewey (2002) wrote, “the chief means of continuous, graded, economical improvement and social rectification lies in utilizing the opportunities of educating the young to modify prevailing types of thought and desire” (p. 127). As a survivor of discrimination, I feel a strong obligation to do my part to promote change around issues of bias and equity, particularly around sexual orientation and gender identity. As an educator, I see education as a powerful tool against bigotry and discrimination. People are afraid of the unknown. Education provides an opportunity to raise the consciousness of students and campus members about the ways society perpetuates discrimination and inequity (Eisner, 2002). If education is to promote cultural competency, there

must be opportunities to interact with diverse people and perspectives (Asumah & Nagel, 2014; Reason et al., 2005). Universities have a greater obligation than ever before to promote a culturally competent campus community, which includes LGBTQ people. Though societal support for LGBTQ Americans is increasing and undeniable improvements have been made across the country for LGBTQ students, discrimination against this community is on the rise (Sax, 2020). Societal perceptions of LGBTQ people are influenced by experience, and visibility of the LGBTQ community has increased. A 2016 Gallup Poll showed that the number of American adults identifying as LGBTQ increased to 4.1% from 2.5% in 2012 (Gates, 2017). Approximately 90% of LGBTQ adults believe society’s overall acceptance has increased over the last 10 years (Pew Research Center, 2013). In 2016, the Pew Research Center further found that approximately 70% of adults believed knowing someone who is LGBTQ impacts society’s growing acceptance (2016). Even in communities where there are long histories of anti-LGBTQ discrimination, there is increasing acceptance (HRC, Faith Positions, 2020). In several religious communities, more people are out than ever before (Pew Research Center, 2016). Additionally, a majority said they knew someone who is gay (2016). Despite this growing acceptance and advancements toward LGBTQ equity, backlash against LGBTQ people in some of these same communities remains. Currently, there are more than 200 anti-LGBTQ discriminatory bills proposed across the United States. Of these, the majority target transgender youths’ access to medical and mental health care, inclusive schools, and restroom facilities. Annually, state legislative cycles across the country feature anti-LGBTQ discrimination. This is also the case in this study, where the state legislature is currently considering four anti-LGBTQ bills, all of which would greatly impact youth. Schools are microcosms of society and provide unlimited opportunities to build community across difference. When I began my tenure as the founding director of an LGBTQ office, I understood the deep hostility LGBTQ educators and students experience (Blount, 2005; Graves, 2009; Harbeck, 1997; Jackson, 2007; Jennings, 2005; Sanlo, 1999; Sanlo, et al 2002). Shifting perspectives requires shifting a culture (Reason & Davis, 2005). Integrating LGBTQ issues and shifting institutional culture is multifaceted, and requires a constant, visible, and vigilant commitment to the community (Williams, et al. 2005). In this case, the university adopted the IE model as a framework to guide DEI efforts. When the office was founded, there

were few resources connecting the IE framework as a tool for guiding LGBTQ efforts. However, when beginning the work, it was clear that visibility was a starting point. An institution cannot begin to achieve a thriving LGBTQ inclusive campus before that community is visible, active, and valued on campus. It was through my own personal experiences that I understood the power of visibility as one tool to gain support for the LGBTQ community. Becoming the lead educator and advocate for campus-wide LGBTQ initiatives would require a constant, visible presence. I entered my role as director, having co-chaired the regional pride festival for two years. I had a good understanding of the experiences and concerns of local LGBTQ community members. My experience in curriculum called for a quick read on LGBTQ inclusion within the official and unofficial curricula of the institution (Eisner, 2002). Though there was much work to do, the biggest step was underway. Creating an LGBTQ office is the most important step an institution can take toward LGBTQ inclusion, because it sets a clear message to the rest of the campus that LGBTQ people are welcome. When a university institutionalizes support for LGBTQ people, it sends a clear message to the campus community that LGBTQ people are also valued members of the campus community (Hawley, 2015; Sanlo, 1998; Sanlo, Rankin, & Shoenberg, 2002; Rankin, Weber, Blumenfeld, & Frazer, 2010; Garvey et al, 2017). Several perspectives inform my work as an LGBTQ director, including my identity as a queer woman, educator, curriculum practitioner, and community organizer. It was through these perspectives that I appreciated the challenge of founding an office under an IE model. Understanding that institutional excellence depended upon situating DEI at the core of the institution’s policies and practices meant that LGBTQ people must be included within these efforts. It was with this understanding, and with the goal of institutionalizing LGBTQ inclusion within the curricula of the university, that the case begins with one question: What is the role of an LGBTQ office under an inclusive excellence model?

Beginnings Several guiding questions influenced my initial understanding of LGBTQ office work. The following questions informed the approach and ultimately the design of the LGBTQ office:  What prompted the institution to create the LGBTQ office?  What is the history of LGBTQ education and equity at the institution?

 What do the key stakeholders of the community want out of their LGBTQ office? o What could/should the office’s purpose be?  What, historically, are LGBTQ centers or offices? o Why did LGBTQ offices originate? o What is the purpose of LGBTQ offices? o What benchmarking tools are available for LGBTQ offices?  What is inclusive excellence? o How can IE inform LGBTQ design and practice to influence full institutional commitment?

This chapter will provide a brief overview of the literature and resources used to answer these initial questions. Though there are now increasing resources available on creating inclusive spaces for LGBTQ students, there is a gap in the research of the experiences of LGBTQ people on campuses in the Southeast. This chapter draws upon the resources and literature that informed the founding of one LGBTQ office under an IE model. There are no “how-to” guides for founding and creating an LGBTQ office. In every situation, processes may be different as no institution is the exact same. Efforts should always center the needs of that institution’s LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff. Though LGBTQ advocacy efforts may differ, LGBTQ resource professionals, particularly those new to the field, can draw upon the history of LGBTQ offices on university campuses and key benchmarking tools. This work is constantly evolving, and it is always personal. In this case, it is also autobiographical. “Autobiography as a queer curriculum practice…can cast in new terms the ways in which we might investigate our multiple, intersecting, unpredictable, and unassimilable identities,” (Miller, 1998, p.368). These resources informed a queer, curricular, intersectional approach to creating an LGBTQ office.

A Queer (Self) Study – An Overview of the Setting and Culture Founding an LGBTQ office or center on a university campus is always an effort years in the making (Sanlo, et al., 2002). In this case, the process of creating an LGBTQ office was due to the work of several individuals, organizations, and allies. The following history is informed by personal communication with individuals involved in the years-long effort to create the office in

this case. This information is important to situate the campus community as I will draw upon some of these experiences later in the study. Organized efforts to create a fulltime LGBTQ position began in 2006 as the institution was undergoing a strategic planning process. The Division of Student Affairs led the initiative after a director called attention to the lack of support the LGBTQ community received on campus. Specifically, it was noted that nothing was happening to support the estimated 1,000 gay or lesbian students on campus, even though there were resources available for other marginalized groups. At this time there was a student organization that operated as a social, support group rather than an advocacy one. The director also called attention to the fact that more universities were supporting LGBTQ students through offices and centers (Sanlo, 2001; personal communication, 2014). In the Fall of 2006, a research group was formed to assess the role of an LGBTQ position on campus. Initially, little progress was made on campus through the research group, but the conversation had officially begun. A larger institution in the state had just become the first to institutionalize LGBTQ support by creating a fulltime director position. At the same time, at institution in this study, discussions to create an LGBTQ resource office were largely ignored. After some frustrating setbacks, the student organization began organizing on campus around LGBTQ discrimination and administrators became under attack for not doing enough to support LGBTQ inclusion. A couple of rallies and protests happened on campus around same sex marriage, the ban on gay men donating blood, and LGBTQ discrimination. An LGBTQ employee resource group (ERG) formed, first meeting in secret off campus, but they soon began organizing around needs on campus. Their first effort involved hosting a reception with key stakeholders to provide information about domestic partner benefits. In 2008, after organizing teach ins and garnering administrative support, the institution made a leap toward LGBTQ inclusion by passing domestic partner benefits through a 9-2 board of regents’ vote (personal communication, 2014). After achieving domestic partner benefits, efforts stalled for a few years. In 2011, the ERG was revived. One year later, a new university president and a vice president for student affairs were hired, and a new focus for DEI efforts at the university began (personal communication 2013, personal communication, 2014). A committed group of students effectively lobbied with the student government association (SGA) that LGBTQ support must be

institutionalized on campus. In Spring of 2013, the SGA passed a resolution asking the institution to hire an LGBTQ director. I began my role as the founding director in August, 2013, at the beginning of the Fall semester.

A Brief Background on LGBTQ Resource Centers and Offices Institutionalizing support for LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff, requires that funding must be provided for at least one halftime professional staff person or graduate student, whose position is designated for supporting the LGBTQ community (Campus Pride, Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals). This decision typically occurs for any combination of three reasons: Response to a bias motivated incident, homophobia, and/or transphobia; response to requests for institutionalized support from LGBTQ faculty, staff, and students; and/or administrators’ recognition that if an institution values DEI and cares to foster a sense of belonging for all students, LGBTQ people must be supported on campus (Sanlo, Rankin, & Schoenberg, 2002). One of the first steps administrators take in the process of institutionalizing LGBTQ resources is creating a committee charged with exploring LGBTQ experiences on campus and determining a need for resources (Sanlo, Rankin, & Shoenberg, p. 14). In this study, all of the above influenced the creation of the LGBTQ office on campus. In 2013, the institution became the second in the state to establish an LGBTQ resource office. Since then, two additional public institutions have created funding for full time centers or offices. In this case, LGBTQ resources were created because of several groups of faculty, staff, and students who stayed dedicated to the cause (Sanlo, Rankin, & Schoenberg, 2002). In most situations, LGBTQ resources are funded due to student action, and it was due to students that the first LGBTQ campus resource center was born (Sanlo, Rankin, & Schoenberg, 2002). In 1970, a group of University of Michigan students and community members formed on campus groups to address stereotypes of gay and lesbian people and fight discrimination, including mental illness models that invalidated LGBTQ people (Burris, 2017). Over the course of the next year, following continued action and pressure from student and community groups, the University of Michigan became the first institution in the country to institutionalize LGBTQ resources with the Human Sexuality Office (HSO). In 1971, two quarter-time human sexuality advocate positions were established to serve gay men and lesbian students. The staffing and resources at the University of Michigan continued to evolve over the years, becoming a model

institution for providing services to the LGBTQ campus community. Though over time a few additional universities institutionalized LGBTQ resources, it took more than 20 years before the number of LGBTQ campus resource offices and centers took off and began to rise (Burris, 2017). The founding director of the HSO at University of Michigan, Jim Tow, spent more than 20 years in his role, supporting LGBTQ students and advocating for a better campus climate. In the early years, resources mostly involved counseling students who were struggling with their identity and addressing negative perceptions of LGBTQ people (Sanlo, Rankin, & Schoenberg, 2002; Burris, 2017). In 1993, Tow’s decades-long effort to convince the institution to include sexual orientation within the non-discrimination policy was successful (Burris, 2017). Shortly before the University of Michigan extended non-discrimination protections to LGBTQ people, the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce (NGLTF) launched the Campus Project to begin research and develop resources to foster more inclusive campus communities (Sanlo, Rankin, & Shoenberg, 2002). In 1994, Ronni Sanlo took the helm of LGBTQ resources at the University of Michigan’s newly-renamed Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Programs Office. A new focus on positive representations of LGBTQ people, education, inclusion, and visibility emerged (Sanlo, Rankin, & Schoenberg, 2002; Burris, 2017). In 1994, the University of Pennsylvania hosted the first gathering of people working with LGBTQ populations on campus (Sanlo, Rankin, & Schoenberg, 2002). The Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals (the Consortium) was officially formed in 1997 at the NGLTF Creating Change Conference in San Diego, becoming the first organization to support LGBTQ campus resource professionals. Throughout the 1990s, the number of campus LGBTQ resource centers began steadily increasing. By 1996, approximately 30 institutions funded at least one full-time LGBTQ campus resource professional, double the number from 1992 (Sanlo, Rankin, & Schoenberg, 2002). Fourteen years later that number quadrupled to approximately 160 institutions (Rankin, et al., 2010; Consortium, 2011).

Supporting LGBTQ College Students Though undeniable advancements have been made to improve campus climate for LGBTQ college students over the years, it is still the case that LGBTQ students experience more harassment and discrimination than their heterosexual peers (Rankin, 2010; Rankin, 2001).

LGBTQ students of color experience a more hostile campus environment than white students, and they are often forced to choose campus support services aligned with their racial identity rather than their sexual orientation and/or gender identity (McCoy, 2018; Rankin, 2010). Even with societal advancements in LGBTQ inclusion and more colleges and universities supporting LGBTQ students than ever before, educational institutions and LGBTQ students are repeated targets of anti-LGBTQ efforts. Currently there are 10 states considering legislation that would criminalize medical care for transgender youth, in some cases mandating jail time for physicians who prescribe life-saving medication to these youth (Saxe, 2020). Concurrently, 16 states are considering legislation that would restrict transgender youth from participating in sports (Saxe, 2020). Dozens of additional anti-LGBTQ bills are proposed across the country, including bills that would allow individuals to refuse any care or service based on their religious convictions (Saxe, 2020). There are currently examples of each of these discriminatory bills proposed within our own state’s legislature, all of which could greatly impact the ways LGBTQ students are supported (ACLU, “Legislation Affecting LGBT Rights Across the Country,” 2020). Additionally, the Supreme Court of the United States is set to hear another appeal between LGBTQ equity and religious rights (Liptak, 2020). This proposed legislation impacts LGBTQ students’ well-being, as it potentially impacts their lives. Thus, it is crucial that LGBTQ students have clear and visible representation and support if they are to thrive in their college careers (Lucozzi, 1998). There are countless examples of LGBTQ discrimination against college students. This long history includes a “secret court” at Harvard University in 1920 that found 14 men, mostly college students, “guilty” of homosexuality and then forced them not only to leave the institution, but the also the City of Cambridge entirely (Paley, 2002). A more recent example includes Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, who died by suicide after his roommate violated his privacy by secretly streaming an intimate encounter on social media (Tyler Clementi Foundation, 2020). In the past, it was often the case that LGBTQ resource centers were established after instances of extraordinary LGBTQ discrimination. This was the case in the 1990s, particularly after the horrific murder in 1998 of Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming college student who was brutally beaten, tortured, and left tied to a fence (Sanlo, Rankin, & Shoenberg, 2002). Not long after Matthew’s death, a few early founders of LGBTQ

resource centers wrote, “When powerful people—politicians, ministers, civic leaders, and editorialists—use their positions to spread ill-informed, hateful opinions, they create a climate in which others feel justified in using violence” (Sanlo, Rankin, & Shoenberg, 2002, p. xv). Approximately 20 years later, the violence continues as at least 26 transgender people were reported as having died by hate-motivated violence in 2019 (Human Rights Campaign, 2019). Universities must play a part in educating society and eradicating this violence. As Allan Johnson (2000) noted, The simple truth is that [social injustice] can’t be solved unless people who are heterosexual or male or Anglo or White or economically comfortable feel obligated to make the problem of privilege their problem and to do something about it. (as cited in Broido & Reason, 2005, p. 17)

Role of LGBTQ Resource Centers and Offices Diversity is essential for reaching and ensuring academic excellence for all students attending college, and deliberate actions must be taken to educate all students to succeed in a diverse society and arm them with complex intercultural accoutrements for success in the twenty-first century. (Asumah, S. & Nagel, M. Eds., 2014, pp. xiii-xiv)

For university administrators and professionals who understand LGBTQ equity as part of achieving institutional excellence, there are now several national organizations that can help guide the effort. In student affairs, both the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) and American College Personnel Association (ACPA), have LGBTQ resource groups. In this case, resources from two national organizations were regularly utilized in founding the LGBTQ office. To this day, Campus Pride is one of the only national, non-profit organizations serving university student leaders, campus groups, and resource professionals working to create inclusive, welcoming campus environments for the LGBTQ community (Campus Pride). Founded in 2001 by Sarah Holmes, M. Chad Wilson, and Shane Windmeyer, Campus Pride remains volunteer-driven, and offers support through research, events, and resources (Campus Pride). The Consortium continues to provide community support to “those working toward liberation of LGBTQ people in higher education” (Consortium, 2018 Annual Report). Both organizations have been key in creating the only free, widely accessible guidelines

and benchmarks for university administrators working toward LGBTQ inclusion. As the number of LGBTQ offices on campuses across the country have increased over the years, essentially the purpose remains the same—all students, including LGBTQ students, deserve to be included, valued members of a campus community (Rankin et al., 2010; Sanlo, 1998; Sanlo, Rankin, & Schoenberg, 1998). When an institution’s excellence depends upon its effectiveness in creating an inclusive campus community, LGBTQ equity must be included and LGBTQ students must have access to resources (Sanlo, Rankin, & Schoenberg, 2002). Essentially, the work of an LGBTQ resource center is to work with campus partners to foster a sense of belonging for the LGBTQ campus community. It is the director’s role to lead that change. Organizations including Campus Pride and the Consortium have continued to develop best practices for people engaged in LGBTQ equity work on campuses (Garvey et al, 2017). In 2016, the Consortium formed a workgroup to “develop and disseminate standards that can be operationalized on any campus, whether or not these campuses have LGBT resource professionals” (Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals: 2018 Annual Report, 2018, p. 10). Guiding these efforts was the “shared vision of the Consortium: ‘we envision higher education environments where LGBTQ people, inclusive of all of our intersecting identities, are fully liberated” (Consortium, 2018, p. 10). The workgroup commissioned by the Consortium developed 12 core competencies and standards of practice for the profession (Consortium, p. 2018). These core competencies, listed below, serve as a guideline for LGBTQ directors and professionals in higher education. 1. The ability to envision and execute a strategic direction for all facets of LGBTQIA+ campus life. 2. Navigates complex campus structures and contexts with political acumen to affect institutional change for LGBTQIA+ communities. 3. Provides administrative leadership and management of human, physical, and financial resources dedicated to supporting LGBTQIA+ campus populations. 4. Creates a culture of belonging within the campus LGBTQIA+ community through inclusive practices that embrace all LGBTQIA+ identities and the diverse intersections of these identities. 5. Has significant knowledge of and experience with policy and practice related to LGBTQIA+ communities in the broader context of equity, diversity, and inclusion.

6. Assess campus climate and LGBTQIA+ success using multiple measurement methods and communicates the impact of LGBTQIA+ communities on campus and the impact of campus on LGBTQIA+ communities. 7. Participates in the intellectual life of the institution and contributes to its academic mission. 8. Provides institutional partners with support and consultation, through a holistic approach, to enhance individual and community success. 9. Collaborates with institutional partners to increase access, recruitment, and retention of LGBTQIA+ students, staff, and faculty. 10. Supports the LGBTQIA+ community through strong crisis management skills and collaboration with key campus partners. 11. Engages LGBTQIA+ and allied alumnus and supports institutional goals around fundraising and advancement. 12. Utilizes knowledge of research, theory, and history of LGBTQIA+ communities, grounded in social justice, equity, and inclusion.

These core competencies serve as one guideline administrators can use when creating a position for an LGBTQ resource professional on campus. One easily accessible tool that administrators and LGBTQ resource professionals can further utilize to assess LGBTQ inclusion and provide a starting point for LGBTQ inclusion efforts, is the Campus Pride Index.

Campus Pride Index – One Tool for LGBTQ Inclusion There are no national standards for LGBTQ offices, therefore the Campus Pride Index (CPI) is one beneficial tool that colleges and universities can use to assess LGBTQA campus climate and guide institutional DEI efforts around LGBTQ inclusion (Garvey et al., 2017). The CPI was developed by Campus Pride and launched in 2007 as a free, accessible tool available to university administrators (Garvey et al., 2017). This tool assesses campus climate in the following areas: 1. LGBTQ Policy Inclusion 2. LGBTQ Support and Institutional Commitment 3. LGBTQ Academic Life

4. LGBTQ Student Life 5. LGBTQ Housing 6. LGBTQ Campus Safety 7. LGBTQ Counseling and Health 8. LGBTQ Recruitment and Retention (Campus Pride, Garvey et al., 2017)

Upon completing the CPI, campuses receive a confidential report detailing each of these areas and providing suggestions for improved policies, practices, and resources (Campus Pride, Garvey et al., 2017). Institutions receive a rating based on a five-star system, with a five-star rating representing institutions that are leading efforts in LGBTQ inclusion nationally (Campus Pride, Garvey et al). The CPI also provides a streamlined landing resource page for any prospective college student who values LGBTQ inclusion, through online resources and college fairs (Garvey et al., 2017). As the only benchmarking tool, “the CPI provides a solid foundation to examine LGBTQ issues and, most important, to improve LGBTQ-friendly policies, programs, and practices” (Garvey et al., 2017). Campus Pride and the CPI provide prospective and current students, faculty, and staff a snapshot of an institution’s efforts to embed and promote LGBTQ inclusion. The CPI is just one tool to gauge LGBTQ inclusion. Further perspectives can be gathered by visiting campus and looking for representations of the benchmarks an institution claims to have reached. Some examples are: Visiting an LGBTQ office or center (if there is one) and looking for visible signs of LGBTQ inclusion (including LGBTQ training stickers or magnets on office doors, pride flags, LGBTQ student and faculty/staff organizations, and openly out LGBTQ individuals on campus). When LGBTQ inclusion becomes part of the fabric of an institution, it is something that can be seen and felt across campus. Last year I was tabling for my institution at an event for LGBTQ youth when a parent of a prospective student approached the table, saw the office logo and said, “LGBTQ. I thought that was what you [the institution] were known for.” With more than 25% of the student population self-identifying as part of the LGBTQ community word has gotten out that LGBTQ people have a place on our campus. LGBTQ inclusion did not happen overnight and it did not include a one- size fits all approach. The CPI is one tool to guide institutions in LGBTQ inclusion efforts, but shifting a culture to promote LGBTQ inclusion is a full campus effort. It is only when LGBTQ

inclusion is a full campus effort that it becomes part of an institution’s core values. Inclusive excellence is one helpful DEI framework for influencing campus wide institutional change and commitment.

Queering Inclusive Excellence In an education system governed by what constitutes “excellence,” institutions must move beyond academic excellence alone and expand efforts to situate inclusion, equity, and diversity at the core of the academic mission and institutional functioning. In 2010, to address issues of inequity and exclusion in higher education, the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) proposed the IE model as an effective framework to guide efforts to comprehensively integrate diversity and inclusion into all components of institutional structure. IE recognizes that institutional excellence is dependent upon the engrained efforts to cultivate a community of belonging, and provides a framework that institutions can use to situate inclusion, equity, diversity, and justice at the core of the academic mission and institutional functioning (Williams et al., 2005). IE further recognizes that institutional excellence is dependent upon an institution’s efforts to ensure that all members of the campus community feel that they belong (Williams et al., 2005). Inclusive excellence stems from the belief that education should be a catalyst for social change in our country. Education cannot be a catalyst for social change when efforts are fragmented. In “Making Excellence Inclusive,” one of three papers commissioned by AAC&U on IE, Williams, Berger, and McClendon (2005) explained, IE Change Model is no longer envisioned as a collection of static pieces—a programmatic element here, a compositional goal for the student body there. Within the IE Change Model, diversity is a key component of a comprehensive strategy for achieving institutional excellence, which includes, but is not limited to, the academic excellence of all students in attendance and concerted efforts to educate all students to succeed in a diverse society and equip them with sophisticated intercultural skills. (p. 13) If an institution is to achieve excellence, there must be a shared commitment to foster a campus community where all members feel valued and respected. “Supporting diversity in colleges and universities is not only a matter of social justice but also a matter of promoting educational excellence” (Milem, 2003, as cited in Reason and Davis, 2005, p.8). IE shifts DEI

efforts onto the shoulders of every person across campus, which requires allies and partnerships across campus who embed DEI initiatives within their own work (Williams et. al, 2005). “To be responsible, culturally competent citizens…whose interaction with other people in the world is inevitable, we have no choice but to work to eradicate oppression and the injustices associated with ‘othering’ before they become an anathema of our humanity” (Asumah, S.N. & Nagel, M., 2014, p. xiv). When the office was founded, the institution was moving toward the IE model, but had not yet developed what that model would look like. The charge was to develop an LGBTQ office; however, there was some lack of clarity around what the IE initiative would look like at our institution. AAC&U provided some resources, including an overview of IE and case studies of institutions that had begun IE initiatives with some success (Williams et. al., 2005). Operating with an overall understanding of IE as a framework and utilizing the available benchmarking tools, I began the process of establishing an office under a framework that had to be adapted in order to serve the community I was charged with representing. Queering IE began with embedding LGBTQ inclusion into all of the institution’s policies and practices.

CHAPTER THREE – QUEERING, CURRERE, AND CURRICULUM

Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, to rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless. (Rushdie, 1991)

There are limited opportunities for pursuing a career in higher education as an LGBTQ advocacy and education professional. As previously mentioned, the institution in this case is one of only four universities in the state that funds at least one fulltime position to support the LGBTQ community. It is also an institution that has achieved some success, as it is recognized as a top institution for LGBTQ inclusion by Campus Pride. Due to the institution’s efforts around LGBTQ inclusion, as well as transparency around my own experiences as an educator, queer woman, and survivor of homophobic bigotry and discrimination, I am often asked about my journey to becoming an LGBTQ director. Common questions include: How did a person with my background become a director of an LGBTQ office on a university campus? How have my own educational and personal experiences led me to this point in my career path? How have my experiences and ideologies impacted my work? What are my hopes for the future of the LGBTQ office? Past experiences fueled my early strategies—community building, storytelling, and a push toward LGBTQ representation and visibility throughout all aspects of the institution’s policies and practices. I began to wonder how those experiences impacted the individual and collective journey of the becoming of this LGBTQ office. Though there are several online community spaces for LGBTQ higher education professionals to share resources, there are relatively few autobiographical accounts of engaging in this work. As a new professional in the field, the only autobiographical research I found was through direct conversations with other founding directors. I could find no research on queering inclusive excellence, or adaptations to the IE framework to include LGBTQ people. Yet, as a founding director, there were countless instances when I recommended first time efforts around LGBTQ-inclusion across institutional policies and resources in accordance with IE guidelines. Due to the breadth of these efforts, I felt a growing obligation to better understand my pedagogical ideologies. I wondered how my personal and educational experiences ultimately influenced the decisions I made as the founding director in this role. Nearly seven years later, I

see the growing practical value of this shared experience. Due to the lack of autobiographical resources, there is benefit in documenting one institution’s curricular approach to institutionalizing LGBTQ support services. This study aims to supplement a gap in the research, detailing the journey of building an LGBTQ office. It is especially timely due to recent events that have permanently shifted this work. Throughout this study, I use the word “queer” and “queering.” It is important to note that queer is not unitary. It can be used as umbrella terminology, as an action, as an identity, and as a verb. Queer resists definition and can carry different meaning depending on the person. In this study, and in my work, I use queer as a pedagogical tool for infusing LGBTQ inclusion. Throughout this study, I use “queer” or “queering” as part of an effort to disrupt hetero-cissexist spaces on campus with queer representation. In some cases, queering is the integration of queer content into official and unofficial curriculum of the institution. In some situations, it requires taking surveillance of situations and understanding what is missing. As the LGBTQ resource professional, it means looking around the room or at policies or practices and asking: Where is the queer and trans representation? What does it look like? What does this representation teach? Where are the gaps and areas of LGBTQ inequity? This work is a physical and emotional act.

Enter a Global Pandemic It is important to include as part of this process, that as I was preparing to submit my first full draft of this dissertation to my chair, the global pandemic Covid-19 arrived in our region. Just prior to this, student ambassadors were planning a large campus wide celebration to recognize our institution finally achieving a 5-star rating on the Campus Pride Index. Students were planning several largescale Pride Week events to celebrate the years of collaboration and partnerships with departments across campus that made this achievement possible. A new student organization had just formed on campus for queer and masculine-aligned men, and received incredible interest within just a few days. Then, as this study transitioned from a months-long process of engaging my own learning and an institution’s journey, Covid-19 forced a permanent redirection. Efforts to get at the biographic present of my work imploded. Everything changed. Students were on spring break when a week-long extended break was announced. For many, especially those who were studying abroad (my daughter, included), it seemed impossible

that a mysterious virus had made its way from overseas, to the west coast and New York City, to our region. Campus moved completely virtual within the next two weeks, including all student support resources and services. A few weeks before we were planning a visible, week-long celebration of the LGBTQ campus community. The new challenges Covid-19 presented seemed endless. Students who were excited to help plan campus’s pride celebration were suddenly forced back into the closet upon returning to unsupportive homes. Some students reported returning to loving homes, but were feeling triggered because of the forced return to less positive high school memories. Available options to connect virtually—Zoom, WebEx, Microsoft Teams—were ineffective in reaching LGBTQ students, because even in the best situations it is difficult for an LGBTQ student to feel comfortable chatting openly when family may overhear. The role of the LGBTQ university office is changed. Though I am not certain I leave this study with more clarity on what Fall 2020 semesters will look like across the country, I believe that self-awareness and reflection will be more important than ever, especially for those who serve students with the most marginalized identities.

To Run the Course Through Quarantine: Re-situating the Study I began this study with the expectation that I would come to a greater understanding about my time as a founding LGBTQ office director. I hoped to reveal what the journey of building the LGBTQ office has meant along the way for myself and the institution. Currere provides an opportunity to deeply reflect upon the act of creating, implementing, and infusing institutional curricular changes, and the impact of that act. Currere provides an autobiographical means for reflection to connect the seemingly disconnected dots of this work. It calls upon hidden moments and memories to better connect culture, programming, policy, and curriculum changes. As the person charged with leading LGBTQ inclusion efforts, I share these experiences to contribute additional resources to my field. Poetter (2017) writes of currere, It’s in the particular that we find the meaning. It’s in the particular that we notice the trends or themes or threads of our experiences, the connections to important and new ideas, the impetus to translate our experiences and memories into new steps, new adventures, net ends. (p. 9)

I was drawn to currere because I wanted to achieve a better understanding about my perspectives and ideological approaches. I hoped for self-transformation and greater awareness of the influences at play in my professional and public social justice work (Baszile, 2015). Prior to Covid-19 restrictions, this study contemplated various moments and their impact on the founding of an office. Using currere vignettes, I presented curriculum issues that impacted LGBTQ efforts and institutional change, and my path through the course of addressing those issues. As Pinar (2004) wrote, “The point of currere is an intensified engagement with daily life, not an ironic detachment from it” (p. 37). This process is a reconstruction of thinking. Never before in my professional career has it been more important to be clearly aware of the present— the present that actually is and not what one hopes it to be—in order to purposefully plan for the future. Baszile (2015) wrote, Moreover, it is important to note that currere is not necessarily the work of writing autobiography; that is to say that it does not have to result in the stories of one’s life written or spoken for a public. The hope is that it does bring about self-transformation and as such it will shape one’s public work toward justice. (p. 7) The Covid-19 global pandemic forces a continued cry for justice and a return to the synthesis of this study. Disproportionate numbers of marginalized communities are suffering at the hands of Covid-19, including college students. At this writing, some universities have announced a decision to continue virtual learning through the end of the year. Many present uncertain plans of reopening, causing additional anxieties among students, faculty, and staff. Predictions of a new surge in Covid-19 cases in the fall leads to much uncertainty about the safety of campus communities. I return to currere to imagine the future of LGBTQ inclusion on a university campus, including virtual attempts to foster a sense of belonging and retain a vibrant LGBTQ campus community.

Queering, Currere, and Curriculum This study is an invitation into my world as an LGBTQ higher education professional, educator, and founding director. It began with a desire to better understanding the processes one institution undertook in founding an LGBTQ office and establishing LGBTQ inclusion as a campus priority. There are many stories to tell about this specific case and the strategies used to infuse LGBTQ equity and inclusion into strategic plans and core values of the institution. Pinar

(1975) wrote, “I must be willing to objectively describe the relation between my professional work and my personal work, not succumbing to popular attitudes, whether these insist the two must be connected or remain separate” (p. 4). These stories are individual and collective—the journey of my own becoming, the journey of the founding of an office, and the queering of an institution. Currere provides an opportunity to consider these journeys, through a retrospective course of deep self-discovery through structured moments. As a queer pedagogue, it is my practice to identify areas of inclusion and exclusion and to advocate for institutional processes and procedures that enhance visibility, inclusion, and equity for LGBTQ people. As an administrator who influences institutional change, it is important to understand my influences. Currere provides structured moments, leading to better understanding of my “own educational experience in the context of the historical, social, political, and cultural realities that give it meaning” (Baszile, 2015, p. 2). Pinar (2004) proposed currere as “a strategy for students of curriculum to study the relations between academic knowledge and life history in the interest of self-understanding and social reconstruction” (Pinar, 2004, p. 35). Moving through the various moments of currere, I return to my past experiences with education, curriculum, and queer organizing, and consider how these experiences impacted the decisions I made as the founding director of the office. Currere’s four moments of critical reflection provide a process to better understand my own educational journey as a professional in a relatively small field.

Now What? Moving Forward Despite Covid-19 An essential role of an LGBTQ director is to foster a sense of belonging for the LGBTQ campus community. Strayhorn (2019) frames sense of belonging as “a basic human need that takes on heightened importance in certain social contexts where some individuals are prone to feeling unsupported, unwelcomed, or lonely, or in some social contexts where certain individuals are more likely to feel that way” (p. 5). Students must feel a sense of belonging in order to excel. When LGBTQ people are able to live authentically and openly on campus, they report feeling as if they are an important part of the community. In this study, I utilize a series of currere vignettes to present a “systemic study of educational experience” (Pinar, 2002, p. 4). Through these vignettes, I situate different curriculum issues impacting LGBTQ inclusion, situating each with influences that impacted the case in this study, including exterior political motives (e.g. – anti-

LGBTQ legislation) and institutional priorities, particularly around IE. Considering curriculum as the totality of a person’s experience with an institution, the vignettes present my extraordinarily complicated conversations, navigating the official and unofficial curriculum with the goal of fostering a sense of belonging among the LGBTQ campus community and my journey through these moments. In the following four vignettes, I provide an invitation into my world as a practitioner, educator, and researcher. The four currere vignettes explore the official and unofficial curriculum of the institution through different moments of impacting institutional commitment and support, fostering a sense of belonging, shifting institutional policy to promote trans equity, and intentional changes to the curriculum. The currere narratives are presented in chronological order; however, each piece of this journey connects to the next. Each provides insight into the experiences of engaging in intersectional work with students to impact LGBTQ opportunities and equity.

CHAPTER FOUR: POP UP PRIDE – A TOOL FOR VISIBILITY AND DISRUPTION Queers are clearly present in “public” realms (schools, for example), yet all of our lives and concerns are framed as private, ours alone, and not of broader social import. For queers, then, public and private form a binary through which oppression is reinforced. (Quinn and Meiners, 2009, p. 5)

Representation Matters When I stepped on campus for the first time as the director of the newly founded LGBTQ office in August of 2013, I was doing so on the heels of several historical advancements. Earlier that year, Barack Obama became the first United States president to include LGBTQ people in his inaugural address, advocating for LGBTQ rights. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin became the first openly gay senator in U.S. history, prompting a few other individuals running for office to come out of the closet as well. A few months prior to beginning my position, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, granting federal protections to legally married LGBTQ individuals. For the first time in my life, there was more widespread positive representation of LGBTQ people across the media. Students brought that energy to campus. The new office was located at the front of the student inclusiveness center, in what had previously been a graduate student office. It felt to be about the size of a closet. Because the institution had moved so quickly on the position and because leadership wanted to empower the new director to communicate needs, the space began with little color and few resources. In the office’s first few weeks, it was a daily occurrence that a small group of LGBTQ students rushed into the center looking for their new space, and found themselves on the other side of my desk. “It’s an LGBTQ office,” I explained on countless occasions. Students rushed in looking for their center—a space that was created just for them—and found one office with one human sitting there waiting for them. “We have to make the entire campus our center,” I often explained in those early conversations. “We need to let everyone know we are here and we are excited about building community together. Every single LGBTQ person should know that they are valued, important members of our community.” It is undeniable that LGBTQ students are more successful in their educational pursuits when they are supported. One of the most beautiful parts

of my job is still the student who rushes into my office for the first time and the look on their face when they realize they are represented and validated, in many cases for the first time in their lives. These student experiences continue to fuel the office’s direction. It was through the desire to scream “WE ARE HERE!” at the top of their lungs to the entire campus, that a small group of students and I planned the office’s formal introduction in the loudest way we could imagine—by throwing a pop-up pride festival in the middle of campus. Students wanted to celebrate the institution’s decision to institutionalize support for the LGBTQ community. As LGBTQ visibility and representation seemed to be at an all-time high, it was essential that the office utilize that momentum on campus. If one goal of the new office was to foster a sense of belonging for the LGBTQ community, then there must be opportunities to reach all people across campus. Inclusive excellence calls for student learning to include “acquisition of knowledge about diverse groups and culture” (Williams, et al., 2005, p. 21). The work of an LGBTQ office, then, is not only about improving policies and procedures, or implementing programs and services. Inclusive excellence calls for diversity within the formal and informal curriculum. Queering IE requires the totality of all student experiences involve engrained, visible representation of LGBTQ people. Learning about content is not the same thing as learning from it. In other words…learning is something more than a series of encounters with knowledge; learning entails, rather, the messier and less predictable process of becoming implicated in knowledge. (Pitt, 1995, as cited in Luhmann, 1998, p. 150)

It is always the case that there are dissenters when an LGBTQ office is created. Introducing this community is often a new experience for all involved because in many cases it isn’t until college that students have opportunities to interact with diverse populations of people. For many, it may seem like the first time they have ever been faced with LGBTQ visibility. My first experience with this unintelligibility was when I was outed, and it seemed as if people generally thought that I was the first LGBTQ person from our hometown. It is still not uncommon for someone to tell me that I am the first “LGBTQ” person they have ever met, or that my wife and I are the “first lesbian couple” they know. I am usually a person’s first queer teacher (or at least the first teacher they’ve had who is able to be out). If we wanted to introduce the LGBTQ community to people across campus who may not realize we exist, we needed to

create a disruption in order to do so. We needed to create LGBTQ visibility and positive representation in order to catch the eye of the still closeted student walking from one class to the next, but we also needed to reach the religion professor who refused to stop teaching homophobic views in his general elective course.

Pop Up Pride The journey began with student commitment, institutional support, community involvement, and the need to begin introducing LGBTQ resources to campus. My immediate charge was to get a feel for what efforts were already happening and what hopes the community had for the office’s role on campus. Though my direct supervisor supported working at a slower pace in order to get accustomed to the new role and establish basic operations, I felt the community deserved an immediate effort. Some of the students who were involved in the advocacy initiatives to create the office reached out immediately upon my arrival. At that time there was one LGBTQ student organization on campus. I visited their first meeting during my first week to introduce myself, answer questions, and encourage them to get involved. Groups of students began visiting the office daily during their breaks to talk about their experiences and their hopes. One afternoon, several of these students ended up in my office for some time, reminiscing about their pride experiences over the summer. I was sitting at my desk, half listening, half answering emails. “No one uses that amphitheater anyway.” I tuned back in and noticed the grins on the faces of the students crowded around my desk. It was the second week of September, and my third week on the job. Just like that, it was also three weeks before we were to bring our first LGBTQ History Month celebration to campus. The students felt there could not be a more perfect location than the amphitheater for the celebration and I agreed. Academic and administrative buildings surround a small lake located in the center of campus. The amphitheater is built into the hill facing the lake. It is paved at the bottom with access to electricity. Due to its location, it is the highest trafficked area on campus, particularly during the lunch hours. Reflecting upon various pride experiences, students envisioned entertainment at the bottom of the amphitheater and organizations tabling at the top. When there was some concern about negative experiences or “accidentally drawing a hate preacher to campus,” I floated the idea of a pop-up festival to the group. I was introduced to the “pop up” concept by my wife who, at the time, was an executive director for a small non-profit

Main Street organization focused on creative place making and economic development. In the years before, I witnessed her efforts with pop up shops and sat in numerous national presentations when she spoke on the topic. She used pop up shops to provide a pathway to demonstrate what is possible, increase community buy in, and leverage positive energy. The student team decided to utilize a pop-up strategy with some subversive marketing for the event.

Performative Disruption October hosts several cultural and social awareness months. Annual events celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month and Disability Awareness Month had happened for years, each with a couple of annual signature events. On October 1, 2013, the first annual kick off to LGBTQ History Month celebration seemingly “popped up” on campus, and a new LGBTQ visibility was introduced. Prior to the event, the students and I hoped for several things—nice weather, a visible introduction for those who needed to connect with the office, and for an overall positive response from the campus community. I also hoped the event forced people like the aforementioned religion professor, as well as students who had no prior experience with LGBTQ people and culture, to interact with the moment. There had never been a month-long celebration of LGBTQ History Month on campus. For the first event, the students liked the pop-up strategy, because it allowed all to focus promotion more directly to the students who may be interested in the office’s support. Students promoted the event with some flyering across campus, plugs in university housing, and social media posts directing folks to the first ever LGBTQ History Month kick off. We invited the university newspaper to cover the event. Student leaders reached out to various student organizations across campus they knew to be allies, including student government, to participate. They insisted on a rainbow balloon arch for the celebration, hoping the spectrum of colors would provide clues that it was a pride-themed event. On October 1, a group of students volunteered to meet me on campus early in the morning. We split up into groups with flyers and chalk supplies, creating signage to direct everyone to the amphitheater from 11:00 a.m. through 1:00 p.m. They covered the campus with rainbows and LGBTQ-positive messages. By the time 11:00 a.m. rolled around, and the center of campus began buzzing with mid- day energy, a lesbian acoustic duo was playing their first set on the stage. Speakers set up throughout the plaza projected music across campus. A few community and campus resource

groups were set at the top, including the new LGBTQ office. Student volunteers staffed the table with me throughout the two-hour period, while the music played. We talked with nearly 200 students who visited the table to learn more information and find out how to get involved. University leadership stopped by, including the president, vice president for student affairs, and the dean of students. Many supportive faculty and staff attended, some staying longer than intended. The post- mortem feedback on the event was positive. On that day, hundreds of people walked out of a building and found themselves in the middle of a small LGBTQ celebration. Our intention to provoke a positive energy around LGBTQ inclusion seemed successful. In the following days, when students visited the office, I asked them for their thoughts on the kickoff celebration. First time visitors came to the office, expressing a disbelief that there was a place for them. A couple said they never thought they would be around so many other LGBTQ people, and they couldn’t believe everyone seemed supportive at the event. All reported excitement about the event as well as the remaining events for LGBTQ History Month. Many posed two questions: “Do you think we could have drag?” and/or “Do you think we can make it bigger next year?” The next week, the infamous “hate preachers” unexpectedly arrived on campus, standing in the same places our celebration had occurred just days before. The visitors spewed their “Everyone is going to HELL!” message for two days, attacking LGBTQ people, women, International students, Latinx students, and the Black and African American community. Within those two days, I saw more student visits to the office than I had ever before in my two-months at the institution. Many were emotionally distraught. Some were triggered. Many were confused about how I could say the institution cared about them, while also allowing hateful people to scream homophobic and transphobic nonsense through a megaphone in the center of campus. Free speech discussions are fruitless. “Despite university policy or democracy, hate speech is hate speech,” one student leader said to me. I tend to agree with my students. However, just as the First Amendment protects those who rationalize hate under the guise of free speech, we are able to utilize consistent visibility as a strategy for infusing LGBTQ inclusion within the formal and informal curriculum. “Can we have drag next year?” Drag queens are at the very core of pride’s history. This should be basic knowledge. Every student must have repeated interaction with the LGBTQ community as part of their educational experience.

The annual kick off to LGBTQ History Month would become one of several annual events the office hosts in accessible places across campus. Always with a team of students, the goal remains to provide additional opportunities for individuals to interact with people and a culture that are different than their own, while expanding visibility to those who need it the most. Seven years later, the kickoff event remains a student-driven, pop up strategy. Rain or shine, it occurs on October 1 as an introduction to LGBTQ history and our campus community, occurring in the amphitheater during campus’s busiest time of the day. An estimated 500 people interact with the pop-up drag show each year, with more than half of those pausing to watch at least a moment of the performance. It is now an annual occurrence that people on campus could find themselves randomly coming upon a pop-up celebration of LGBTQ culture, with intentional educational efforts to smother hate.

Disruption With Drag Each year the kick off serves as the office’s official re-introduction to campus. The celebration reminds people that support services and resources are there. It allows additional opportunities for questioning students or LGBTQ students who have not yet connected to do so. It provides an opportunity for LGBTQ students to see themselves reflected in the campus culture. It is a visible representation of one way LGBTQ people will be a reoccurring part of the institution’s provided educational experience. Though the event is annual, the focus depends on student interest, institutional influences, and pressing LGBTQ issues. Always through drag, histories and culture is highlighted with this event. At least five professional artists from the community participate in the celebration. The show’s host, who has stayed with us since casting this event for the first time in year two, always weaves stories of local history, local and national happenings, and history month programming throughout the two-hour performance. Community and campus organizations table. A clear message is sent throughout campus via microphone and the songs and messages of drag queens that the LGBTQ community is present and supported. With hundreds of people gathered around or passing through, it is intentional messaging reaffirming the inclusion of LGBTQ people and highlighting the community. The pop up drag show became an instant campus tradition for the LGBTQ and ally students. Though it is overall well-received, there are always a few people who complain about the noise or ponder via email what the educational benefit of a drag show could possibly be. It is

never a surprise when positive attention to the LGBTQ community draws dissenters. It was after the first kickoff event that a man walked through my office door exclaiming, “I’m going to tell you right now I’m a bigot, and I don’t understand why you’re here,” before plopping himself down in the chair across from me without invitation. After all, it is a rare occasion to attend any city or community pride festival without encountering some sort of hate group along the way. We brushed it off as coincidence when the hate preachers unexpectedly visited campus within days after our second annual October celebration. Students decided to chalk messages of support each time there were visitors who spewed hate. After our third annual celebration, university administrators were tipped off that the hate group intended to visit campus the next day. Within an hour, students were organized. When the group arrived, the center of campus, including the amphitheater, was chalked with messages of LGBTQ love and support, forcing them to be surrounded by it. Each year the visits occur within days of the LGBTQ History Month kickoff celebration. It was not until year five, when we were setting up needed equipment for the deejay, that the group made the mistake of believing they could once again arrive unannounced, claim First Amendment rights, and take over the center of campus. “You have no rights to this space. The entire plaza is reserved for a student event. You are in our way. You need to leave.” One of the men shoved a camera in my face. A man holding a megaphone attempted to step into my space as he said, “This person is attempting to deny us our First Amendment rights.” I stood my ground and stared directly into his eyes, which is why I noticed the light bulb go off in his head. I could see his eyes catch the office logo on my jacket. “You’re one of THOSE!” “This space is reserved. You need to move.” I turned my back and walked back to my students, who were in disbelief that our celebration could be shrouded in hate. “I can’t believe they’re here!” “I can’t believe this is happening!” “What are we going to do?” “I mean, I wouldn’t want to mess with a drag queen,” I replied. Within the next hour, students once again organized. Social media posts blasted throughout the student body that the hateful visitors were there, so everyone should come out to

support the LGBTQ celebration. I called the chief of police and officers arrived immediately to help us relocate the uninvited guests. Two officers staffed the area where hate was spewing, and two officers staffed the LGBTQ celebration that was about to begin approximately 100 feet away. I knocked on the dressing room door and stepped inside. “We have visitors,” I began. I explained the situation, the police presence, and the forced compromise regarding space. I was met with pure drag queen magic. Drag queens and Trans people have always been on the front lines of the fight for basic LGBTQ equity. There would be no pride without drag queens, and there was no better response to the hate on our campus than a drag show. I left the dressing room and walked back to the amphitheater, stepping over chalked art and positive messages. “Happy LGBTQ History Month!” I stood in the middle of the amphitheater stage. “We have the biggest celebration planned for you today. Thank you for joining us as we kick off an exciting month’s programming and for helping us drown out the hate. And now, it is my honor and privilege to bring to the stage, our host for the show!” Music blared throughout campus, as our host appeared, walking onto the amphitheater stage, arms outstretched. The artists were brilliant. They brought incredible energy, with no pause for two straight hours in the blazing heat. Between sets, the host told stories and asked questions of students gathered around. The amphitheater was full, with additional people gathered around on the ground above. Periodically we would catch a loiterer from the hate group wandering around the perimeter of the group. The drag show was intended to last for two hours, but the performers extended it, including a group choreographed number at the end. As students had to trickle back to class, the host thanked the crowd and all performers continued to gather in the amphitheater for photos with students. When the last photo was taken, the host looked at the group and said, “Let’s go.” I will never forget the sight of five drag queens walking down the center of campus toward the hateful visitors, and the looks on the faces of all of the students as they passed by. A number of LGBTQ students followed behind, and as they reached the crowd of students who gathered to speak back to the group’s hate, clapping and cheers erupted.

“Hello! Hello! Hello!” I heard the host of our show exclaim as the drag queens entered the crowd. The visitors were caught off guard. Students cheered as the queens began taking photos with students and posed selfies with hate in the background. I stood at the back with the officers and watched a group of drag queens disrupt a hateful space, as they often do. Two hours after the show was intended to end, the performers went back to the dressing room and left campus. Not one single student visited my office distressed over the hate preachers. On that day, the intense visibility of the LGBTQ community made the entire campus our pride center and effectively silenced the hate.

Future Disruptions In 1978, Harvey Mark delivered a speech to celebrate the defeat of California’s Proposition 6. Proposition 6 intended to ban gay and lesbian teachers in California’s schools. Milk was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States, when he delivered the following charge. Every gay person must come out. As difficult as it is, you must tell your immediate family. You must tell your relatives. You must tell your friends if indeed they are your friends. You must tell your neighbors. You must tell the people you work with. You must tell the people in the stores you shop in. And once they realize that we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and for all. And once you do, you will feel so much better. (Milk, 1978)

I understand visibility as a core component of my work. When I was outed as a high school teacher, only two colleagues had the courage to publicly support me. Over the years, as I returned to that school for one of my kids’ events, inevitably someone would approach me, eventually saying, “You know, what happened to you wasn’t okay. Somebody should have said something.” Somebody should have said something. In the six years between my leaving the district to my daughter’s high school graduation, climate shifted. Over the years she casually made mention of a person in the school who was gay and supported within their student group. At one of her senior events, she reintroduced me to a grade school friend of hers and her openly transgender boyfriend. If nothing else, it seemed my story forced a community of people to realize that LGBTQ people exist, and additional students have continued to come out over the

years. My experiences with this community certainly fueled a promise that I made to myself. When I was able to stand again, having survived discrimination, I promised myself I would never again hide who I was. As a survivor, I felt an obligation to return to education and be open and authentic about who I am. There is no doubt that this obligation fuels my charge. Pinar (1998) wrote, Systems of knowledge production and distribution, such as school curricula, are likewise systems, or in the present context, codifications of desire. The knowledge we choose for presentation to the young is one sense like the parts of our bodies we allow them to see. Both the physical body and the body of knowledge are cathected objects, and decisions and policies regarding them follow from our own organization and repression of desire. (p. 231)

LGBTQ people must be represented throughout the institution’s curriculum. When students walk across campus on October 1 each year, they experience LGBTQ culture in a way that they may not have otherwise. Providing curricular experiences, while queering IE requires LGBTQ visibility. Reflecting upon the early strategies and the focus on visibility, the decision to begin with a pop-up pride festival had its risks. When hate preachers visit campus within a few days of the LGBTQ celebration, many students are negatively affected. First time visits to the office always increase after the group visits, with new students often distressed about their negative interaction. The pop-up strategy was used in order to bring an LGBTQ celebration to campus with very little advance notice. Had an on-campus group chosen to protest the event, or had students chosen to disrupt the celebration, it would have presented a number of problems for the space we hoped to create and the ability to gain trust with LGBTQ students. Seven years in, this event remains one of the most effective annual strategies for introducing the office and reminding campus of our thriving LGBTQ community. The community has grown over the years, as more LGBTQ people are out on campus, but we always take advance precautions— inviting university leadership, contacting university police, and spreading the word among all LGBTQ campus networks. There are now five active LGBTQ student organizations on campus, and an active LGBTQ ERG. The event details remain the same—date, time, number of performers, but the message can change. Some years the focus is increasing Trans visibility, addressing toxic masculinity, learning how to become more civically engaged, or addressing

racial and ethnic injustices. The event provides opportunities to leverage positive energy in order to build community and increase support, while providing a pathway to show the LGBTQ community that they are celebrated on campus.

CHAPTER 5: THE BATTLE OF THE NATIONALLY BRANDED FOOD CONCEPT: SPACE, INSTITUTIONAL COMMITMENT, AND LGBTQ INCLUSION

Curriculum contributes to the reproduction of civilization, but so does, finally, resistance to it. Resistance as a concept and as a call for political action is no doubt “beyond passive analysis.” But it too is only a moment in dialectical understanding and action. (Pinar, 1998, p.243)

A new momentum around LGBTQ visibility on campus was brewing as the first history month celebration drew to an end. The office was branded with a rainbow logo, formalizing institutionalized support. Aside from Pop Up Pride, the first history month celebration included programs to celebrate National Coming Out Day, discussions about intersectional LGBTQ identities, social activities including a drag show, and a couple of new trainings. Students continued frequenting the office and programming conversations renewed. We settled on a date for spring’s first annual pride week and began brainstorming possible themes and events, including a pride march. With Transgender Day of Remembrance a few weeks away, a team of students formed to plan programming. It was also at this time that I received the findings of the institution’s first Campus Pride Index assessment. The three star rating was a solid start and provided some direction in establishing processes, procedures, and initiatives. As October drew to a close, I began developing one, three, and five-year plans for the office. Utilizing the Campus Pride Index assessment, we were better able to call attention to the gaps in LGBTQ support. One of these gaps was the clear need for additional support within the office. “We knew you were going to need it,” I was told when I asked. “We wanted to give you time to get settled and determine what resources would be helpful.” The office received funding for three part-time student employees and I was ecstatic. This funding provided opportunities to formalize roles within the office for students, compensating at least a few of them for their commitment and leadership as we began to build the office. In the first three months on campus, it seemed support for the LGBTQ community was relatively consistent and growing. I was blindsided when the bulk of my work was forced to transition to advocacy efforts preventing an addition to the student union.

What’s in a Space? It was a late Tuesday morning in mid-November. Ironically, I was working on an inventory of LGBTQ inclusive spaces when a student appeared in my door. “Do you have a minute?” he began. I knew the student vaguely from their involvement with several student organizations. “I have to run to class, but I wanted to let you know that in last night’s meeting there was a presentation about new options for the food court. I wasn’t sure if anyone told you about it and definitely thought you should know.” Prior to this, I had not considered the complicated nature of the “Nationally Branded Food Concept” (NBFC). At the SGA meeting the evening before, staff presented national food chains as possible additions to the student union food court. According to the student, administration seemed to be leaning toward one of the NBFC options, which is well known for its staunch anti-LGBTQ practices and views. I was irate. How could the institution create the LGBTQ office, provide funding for programming and services, tell our LGBTQ students they matter, and then turn around and plop a very symbol of homophobia in the student union? I went immediately to leadership, who confirmed the university was considering that particular NBFC due to the positive financial gain it could provide. “Think about what that teaches our LGBTQ students. ‘I know we just said you matter, but now we are going to put a homophobic company in the student union because some people like their sandwiches.’ LGBTQ students will literally have to intentionally bypass a university supported, homophobic symbol each time they want to visit my office.” I was assured that no decision had been made, but they provided the name of the staff person leading the NBFC discussion. When I returned to my office, I emailed two individuals. The first was to set up a meeting with the NBFC staff lead, the second was to the SGA president. I was informed this morning that a particular NBFC is one option the university is considering as an addition to the food court in the student union. While I understand that some students would be excited about this addition to food options, I’m clearly concerned about the message this would convey to our students, faculty, staff, and the greater community. (B. Meyer, personal communication, November 12, 2013)

Three days later I met with the NBFC staff lead. I introduced myself when I walked into their office and sat at a small table. As this was our first meeting, I explained what my role was and what it meant. I shared that I learned of the NBFC discussion by a number of students from a number of student organizations. I explained, The obvious concern is that this office is brand new. The institution just created this position. We just celebrated our first history month. This is the first time our LGBTQ students have had institutionalized support. If we put this NBFC more or less directly underneath my office, it shows our LGBTQ students that they don’t really matter after all. (B. Meyer, personal communication, November 15, 2013)

It was immediately clear that this message was either not considered or was considered irrelevant. I sat back in my chair as I was told about how the positive outweighed the negative, and how the financial gain for the university would make it worthwhile. After a 30-minute back and forth about ethics, homophobia, and finances, I was informed that none of it mattered because the NBFC would never change their views and students wanted the option. Some students, not all, wanted the option, I explained, as I walked out their door. Word spread fast and within days the NBFC was a hot topic on campus. Some LGBTQ student leaders were furious and began researching and emailing administration. Some LGBTQ student leaders didn’t see the big deal, claiming it was “just a sandwich.” Many students admitted they had never thought about considering a company’s policies when making decisions about where to eat or shop. I contacted the LGBTQ ERG and met with a small group to discuss. Within days, opinions on all sides were heard across campus. I understood the thin line I was walking on. I was reminded that I was a representative of the university. I understood the public commitment to the institution, even when I may not agree with all of the decisions made. In many cases, this is easy to do. In this situation, it was impossible. I was hired to represent and support the LGBTQ community and that is what I have to do. I will not lose the credibility and relationships I have been working to build. I will not break the trust of this community the very first time a challenge comes along. (B. Meyer, personal communication, November 12, 2013)

And thus began the cyclical battle of the NBFC.

Curricular Implications of the NBFC Founding an LGBTQ office is a pedagogical project. If the point of this pedagogical project is to move the institution toward a more inclusive LGBTQ inclusive campus, then the efforts must be genuine and expansive. Pinar (1998) wrote, But if a pedagogical project is to move beyond the repetition of identity and the only two subject positions allowed when identity is enacted as one of self-versus others, then, pedagogy itself—the production of knowledge, ignorance, and subjects who presume to know—must rethink its methods of how to read that queer space where such discursivity occurs, namely, strategies that can acknowledge the ‘margins between the claims of truth and the claims of textuality. (p. 224)

IE calls for the cohesive embedding of diversity and inclusion throughout the fabric of the institution’s processes, curriculum, and administrative practices. These efforts must be constant, clear, and extensive. In this case, the new strategic plan included LGBTQ people, therefore all students’ experience must include regular, authentic, visible, positive representations of LGBTQ people, and must not encourage platforms for hate. In my new role, the intent was to move the LGBTQ community from the shadows to a place where one could not walk across campus without seeing some representation. One purpose was to ensure that LGBTQ histories and issues were embedded in the institution’s curriculum. This was the issue with the NBFC option. My foremost concern with the NBFC was the contribution it would make to the hidden curriculum of the institution. An institution cannot be inclusive if it does not commit to uncovering the covert meanings conveyed through curriculum. Specifically, if the institution was committed to LGBTQ inclusion, efforts must move beyond simple policy changes and identity- based programming. Eisner (2002) wrote of hidden curriculum as “the messages given…by teachers, school structures, textbooks, and other resources...often conveyed by teachers who themselves are unaware of their presence” (p. 73). An institution’s hidden curriculum serves the populations in positions of power (Eisner, 2002, p. 73). In this case, as one of the first institutions in the state to create an LGBTQ office, the university sent the message that the LGBTQ community is valued on campus. In some ways, the visibility of an LGBTQ office reminds the campus community that LGBTQ people are there and that they are supported by the institution. However, creating

the office and establishing funding is far from enough. If an institution is truly LGBTQ inclusive, it should be seen and felt as one walks across campus. Institutions must also prioritize changes to the physical landscape of buildings and representations on campus, beyond staged photos of minoritized populations of students. If there are few inclusive restrooms on campus, the message conveyed is that the safety of transgender people matters less than the monetary cost to structural changes. Likewise, allowing a company with systemic homophobic practices into a campus food court teaches students that LGBTQ discrimination is okay if it comes with a high enough dollar amount. This institution had created the LGBTQ office just months before and leadership was clear in the new commitment to IE as a DEI framework moving forward. If an institution’s mission includes LGBTQ inclusion, the entirety of the institution’s curriculum must change to reflect that value.

Inclusive Excellence and NBFC The first time I heard about considerations to add a NBFC option, I was busy establishing the office’s purpose. The Campus Pride Index told us many of the things we already knew, and many of the needs were immediate. The findings recommended an action plan for prioritizing the needs of the LGBTQ community. For our institution, the three-star rating reflected the lack in the institution’s non-discrimination policy, as only sexual orientation, not gender identity or gender expression, was included. There was a great need for the institution to consider transgender people in policies and in considerations about facilities and operating systems. There was no easy way for a transgender student, or any student, to process a name change without legal documentation. No formalized efforts had been made to recruit or retain LGBTQ students, faculty, or staff. Inclusive excellence supported the needs clarified by the CPI. Under IE, there were numerous gaps regarding access and equity for LGBTQ people, as well as some campus climate issues to address. Moving forward, it was clear that LGBTQ representation was required when considering demographic information (e.g. the number of LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff at the institution) as well as “the development of a psychological and behavioral climate supportive of all students” (Williams, 2005, p. 21). It is difficult to establish an environment inclusive of all students if administrators aren’t willing to make the commitment to minoritized students. At the

very basic level, it seemed impossible for an institution to achieve “inclusive excellence,” if it was willing to do business with homophobia.

Situating the Issue The NBFC discussion threw a wrench in the fall semester plans for many. After an initial wave of student dissent, continued conversations about the NBFC option was postponed until spring semester. I was assured that when conversations resumed in the spring, I would be kept in the loop. As campus transitioned into winter break and the end of my first semester on campus, I let my guard down. I fully expected to be included in further discussions about NBFC options, so it was a surprise when I returned from a conference to a renewed buzz around the topic. I knew the moment the student appeared in my office door that NBFC efforts returned. There was a town hall scheduled in two weeks to allow the entire campus community the opportunity to provide feedback about the NBFC options. The same student ally from months before stopped by to let me know the topic resurfaced in an SGA meeting and students expressed feelings on all sides. This student went to leadership to express their concerns about the NBFC option and the scheduled town hall that was inciting fiery discussions on campus from all sides. “What was their response?” I asked. “They said they (leadership) could have made the decision on their own, but they decided to let students speak on it” (Personal communication, February 4, 2014). In a matter of days, the NBFC seemed to be the only topic anyone was talking about on campus. The student newspaper reached out and asked for an interview, and I was promptly advised to be careful with my words. As my office is part of the university, the sentiment coming from the office must align with the university message. I visited the LGBTQ student organization meeting to answer questions about the NBFC option and encourage them all to attend the town hall in a few days. Faculty and staff from across campus reached out and asked how they could help. Some staff, mostly cisgender women, reached out in secret and expressed their desire to support, but their fear they would face retaliation if they did so. My tongue was tied to some extent, so students and faculty were helpful in spreading the word about a homophobic option in the food court. I was frustrated by my official statement,

The timing of this isn’t ideal…I’m waiting until after the town hall meeting to form an opinion and official statement about this issue…but the NBFC’s record kind of stands for itself. (B. Meyer, personal communication, February 11, 2014) There was no doubt that my opinion on the matter had formed long before I accepted a position with the university. The efforts driving the NBFC options seemed to happen in the dark and for many, it was the first they had heard of this NBFC consideration. A tenured faculty person shared with me an email they wrote to administration. Since I just learned of this afternoon’s town hall meeting to discuss options on campus, I am unable to attend. However, I do want to express my strong opposition to any contract with this NBFC option…It sends a terrible message of exclusion to our campus community to invite on campus a company that openly and unabashedly discriminates against individuals on the basis of sexual orientation and supports efforts to limit their civil rights. As a university, [we] owe its students a duty of responsible leadership and that includes socially responsible consumer decisions. We have a wonderful opportunity to show the entire community that we do not support discrimination in any form and are unwilling to compromise that value for money. (Personal communication, February 10, 2014)

It was that final comment that we returned to over the course of the next few months—we must be unwilling to compromise our values for money. Some seemed caught off guard by the unrest, and the connection between financial decisions and institutionalizing homophobia. Increasing numbers of tenured faculty reached out to administration, including the administrators leading the NBFC efforts. An LGBTQ student leader added, This should be an important student decision…they are not thinking about what’s going on behind the food. We are the majority of the ones who would be buying the food…Should we be funding a company that’s not supportive? (Personal communication, February 10, 2014)

Large numbers of staff began reaching out to the office and ERG leadership to express frustration. Increasing numbers continued to express apprehension about speaking out. I took

these concerns to leadership, questioning campus climate and calling attention to the negative impact this was causing our campus community. With increasing unrest, communication was sent throughout the university on a late Friday afternoon, regarding the town hall scheduled for Monday afternoon. The town hall was intended to be a student-focused event to promote discussion about what students would like to see as the next food vendor. The situation has evolved beyond the simple discussion of what the next franchise should be, as the original intent of the event was to provide an opportunity for students to discuss the inclusion of one NBFC as a potential vendor…in the near future. After a careful review of the ensuing discussions and in consultation with appropriate university officials, the town hall is postponed until a later date. Over the next few weeks, SGA will work with university officials to develop a process that will insure broad campus input on potential food vendors. (Personal communication, February 14, 2014) Once again, with very little notice, the conversation was postponed with no notice about when the discussion may take place, or what the process would look like moving forward in order to garner campus feedback.

Return to Curriculum Earlier, I noted that when LGBTQ support is institutionalized, it may be the first time many are forced to interact with LGBTQ issues. When the word actually got out about the university’s NBFC considerations, many comments from faculty, students, and some staff streamed in through various means—the office, the ERG, the dean of students’ office, the president’s office and members of cabinet. One side expressed anger over the university even considering doing business with a company known for homophobic policies, while the other side(s) either claimed politics shouldn’t be involved in decision making or they were completely oblivious or didn’t care about the NBFC’s anti-LGBTQ views. In many cases, it seemed most had never considered the curricular impact of this visible representation of hate. Several students admitted hearing about homophobic policies, but never considered what it might mean to LGBTQ friends that they patronize the business. In a number of conversations, LGBTQ students who visited my office admitted they’d never considered the policies or practices about companies and wondered where they could learn more.

When considering a queer pedagogy, Luhmann (1998) referenced Pitt (1995), Learning about content is not the same thing as learning from it. In other words…learning is something more than a series of encounters with knowledge; learning entails, rather, the messier and less predictable process of becoming implicated in knowledge. (Pinar, 1998 p. 150)

That is the crux of this work, I shared repeatedly over the next few months. Integrating LGBTQ issues into the curriculum is great, but it is always just a start and it is always expansive. Inclusive excellence centers the importance of ingraining DEI efforts throughout the institution, but these discussions did not consider the physical contributions of the space that is the institution. What encounters of positive LGBTQ representation do we provide as our campus community traverses the space? Where are the areas across campus that LGBTQ people remain invisible? What do our students, and our community, learn about our values not only by what we say, but also by what we do? As Pinar (1998) wrote, if we are to move beyond simple repetitions of identity, we must be willing to do the pedagogical work (p. 224). Random representations of rainbows, comfortable representations of LGBTQ people, or LGBTQ programming in the name of inclusion would not cut it. Further, there is no inclusion of LGBTQ people unless LGBTQ people have power in decision making, and there is no inclusion of LGBTQ people unless that place at the table is deliberately intersectional. My role as the LGBTQ director was to provide leadership around the physical and financial resources provided to LGBTQ support on campus. Knowing this, I repeatedly asked what the role of the office would be if the institution chose to disregard a lengthy history of discrimination in return for some financial gain. What is the point of this work if the university intends to undermine it in the name of dollar signs? I do not understand why this position was created if we didn’t intend to walk the talk. I will not let this go. (B. Meyer, personal communication, February 14, 2014)

To Forever Run the Course The NBFC continued as a heated topic of conversation throughout the few months. Campus wide surveys were conducted about NBFC options in order to get feedback on the options students, faculty, and staff were most interested in. Alumni who were part of the LGBTQ

community reached out to administration to express their disapproval, including in situations where they had not previously been out on campus. As the end of spring semester approached, a new town hall was announced, once again with little notice. This town hall, it was specified, was for students. It would take place in the form of a panel of university administrators, and I was not to be included in that panel. In fact, I was strongly encouraged not to attend the event at all. After months of work and frustration, I did not attend the town hall on NBFC options.

Director Meyer, I wanted to share with you the points I made at last night’s town hall meeting. This NBFC is unhealthy and inconsistent with the university’s push for wellness…In addition, this chain would eliminate other options from restaurants students enjoy, thus impacting the diets of many students who may choose not to support this franchise or want healthier options. Further, supporting these types of mindsets is detrimental to inclusivity in the strategic plan. (Personal communication, April 8, 2014)

Prior to this experience, I knew the student only due to their involvement in numerous leadership roles on campus. The student was not part of the LGBTQ community, but consistently saw the university’s consideration to do business with homophobia as injustice to the LGBTQ community. “If they were trying to add something to campus that was against my community, I’d be mad,” they often told me. “I would want people to stand up and fight with us too.” Faculty added similar sentiments to the fire, asserting that we must embrace inclusiveness, diversity, and global awareness in all dimensions of our work, and calling attention to the NBFC’s views on human rights as not inclusive. Administration responded, saying the process was in its earliest stages and no changes would be made until later in the next academic year. This was a far cry from earlier claims that the NBFC was under consideration as a new addition to the food court “in the near future.” Every chance I got, I reminded anyone who would listen that every single assessment tool we have available, all of the “indexes” (e.g. Campus Pride Index, Municipal Equality Index, Corporate Equality Index), require consideration of the physical space of an institution. It is not just about the number of inclusive restrooms an

institution has on campus, I explained, while also calling attention to the lack of inclusive facilities we had on our campus. This work is just beginning. We cannot put a hard stop on all the momentum we’ve had this year in the name of a few dollars. We cannot do this to our LGBTQ students. (B. Meyer, personal communication, April 8, 2014)

The physical space of an institution teaches just as much about its values as any written document or spoken commitment. Strayhorn (2019) writes of a sense of belonging “as a basic human need that takes on heightened importance in certain social contexts where some individuals are prone to feeling unsupported, unwelcomed, or lonely, or in some social contexts where certain individuals are more likely to feel that away (p. 4). In the spring of 2014, court cases arguing against same sex marriage were raging across the country. The battle for LGBTQ equity was an increasing conversation in the mass media. As a population of people engaged in battles for basic civil rights, it was essential that any institution that purported LGBTQ inclusion followed it up with action. It wasn’t until January of the next year that a decision was announced. After the idea of an NBFC coming to the student union was hotly debated last spring, administration has elected to use the $700,000 - $800,000 set aside for renovations to a residence hall and dining hall. (Student newspaper, January 14, 2015).

Administrators referenced the additional foot traffic the new option could have driven, possibly creating overcrowding during the busy lunch hours in the building. They further referenced the need to continue renovations to residence halls as their reason to pause conversations on NBFC. It seemed we had prevented homophobia from setting up shop in our student union. The conversation, I thought, was over. For years, I did not hear another thing about that particular NBFC as an option on our campus. Fast forward four years and incredible momentum as we entered spring 2019. Though attacks on the LGBTQ community were at an all-time high, local and on campus initiatives continued to evolve around LGBTQ issues. In June, a local city government would provide a sponsorship for the regional pride festival and use the opportunity to call on additional cities across the region to pass fairness ordinances. In August, a local municipality would pass a

fairness ordinance, prompting five additional cities to follow suit in the months after, all within the county our university is located in. In the months prior, my efforts were perhaps more supported than ever. University leadership continued to back my office as the new strategic plan included LGBTQ initiatives. We were looking forward to submitting the CPI in a few months, in anticipation that we would finally reach a five-star rating. I was full of optimism about the direction the office was moving after reaching several advancements, including tighter partnerships with academic affairs. Even so, it probably shouldn’t have caught me completely out of the blue when an old issue resurfaced. Much like the student ally from years before, this was a student who I vaguely knew only because of their role in leadership positions, particularly with SGA. The SGA had made great strides recently by integrating DEI issues into their own work. Nevertheless, it is still usually the case that if a representative from SGA is stopping by my office, they either have information to share or need assistance with something they are working on. “I wondered if you’d heard about a certain NBFC coming to campus,” the student asked from my doorway. I had not heard a thing. After a conversation with the student, it seemed history was repeating itself. The same staff person from years before asked to present to SGA to gather feedback about campus’s dining options. At this meeting, SGA learned that the university was planning to expand food options within the student union, and once again there was a top candidate. As was the case in the past, I first reached out to my direct supervisor, who said they had not heard. I spoke with office ambassadors, LGBTQ student organization leaders, and representatives from SGA. In an ERG meeting, we once again discussed the impact this NBFC would have on our campus climate. Once again, we discussed curriculum and what this addition would teach our students. By chance, I had scheduled months before to provide an LGBTQ competency training for SGA, which would happen one week before the new food concepts were presented in an SGA meeting. The training was well-received and when I returned the next week to listen in on the NBFC conversation, everything changed. With the exception of a few, the general sentiment by students questioned why the institution would consider bringing an organization to campus that practiced hate. Students referenced the removal of another NBFC option months before after their corporate leadership made racist comments.

If we are going to remove a place for being racist, we need to do the same for homophobic companies. (Personal communication, March 6, 2019) The next day a student leader, also an ally who was not involved in my office or the LGBTQ community, stopped by. “I wanted to let you know that I want to help in any way I can,” they said. “If they were trying to bring another racist company on campus, I would be mad. I would hope that people would stand up for us.” The student support was immediate and required no effort. There was no outcry.

Advocacy, Allyship, and Resistance Pedagogies of inclusion must be considered in all aspects of institutional curriculum, including positive representations in university facilities. The act of resistance to the NBFC option over the years taught the campus community that physical space is curriculum. Times have changed since the fall of 2013. In many ways, the LGBTQ community has achieved more advancements than ever before regarding equity, however these achievements are constantly under attack at the federal and state level. Over the years there have been increasing numbers of reported acts of violence against transgender people of color. Acts of police violence against Black and Brown communities is at the forefront of the media. There are people literally being held in cages on the border. These human rights issues should not be debatable. This work is ever-evolving, but moving forward it is more important than ever before that LGBTQ work is intersectional and intentionally lifts priorities of justice for Black and Brown communities. Though the country is divided, on our campus, student allyship is at an all-time high. It is always student allyship that puts an issue to bed. Bonnie, I don’t think we’re going to go forward with this. We needed to include it as an option when we talked with students, but I just don’t see how it is worth it. We’re going to move forward with the second NBFC option (Personal communication, March 11, 2019). This time I plan to keep my guard up.

CHAPTER 6: LGBTQ EXPERIENCES OF EXILE, RESISTANCE, AND INCLUSION – AN LGBTQ STUDY ABROAD EXPERIENCE TO AMSTERDAM, BRUSSELS, AND PARIS

It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. (Anne Frank, July 15, 1944)

This chapter is one I didn’t see coming when I first stepped foot on campus in my new role. Prior to this experience, I had only dreamed of international travel and, in fact, had never even had a passport. I owe this unlikely chapter in my life to a couple of things—my love for education, a colleague willing to take a chance on a new program, and a life partner with a lot more travel experience and savviness than myself. Nevertheless, I include this chapter to encourage anyone who may be reading this, especially those who work with minoritized college student populations, to imagine the possibilities of study abroad. Study abroad and study away experiences can be designed to provide additional representations of students’ histories, cultures, and movements. The possibilities these programs provide can leave a life-long impact on students. There were a number of things that fell into place that allowed me to create a study abroad course, which I titled, “LGBTQ Experiences of Exile, Resistance, and Inclusion: A Study Abroad Experience in Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris.” I designed the study abroad experience in my second year at the institution, throughout the 2014-2015 academic year. In 2016, I facilitated a group of 12 students on this two-week experience. This chapter details that journey. Even when interviewing for my position, I made it clear that I would be must successful in the role if I was also able to teach. As the LGBTQ office director, I am invested in a campus environment where LGBTQ students can thrive. I feel most equipped to do this when I have multiple interactions with various sides of campus culture. Teaching is one of these interactions. The Consortium’s Core Competencies for LGBTQ directors supports my desire to stay deeply connected with the academic life of the institution. Core seven mandates that an effective LGBTQ office director must participate “in the intellectual life of the institution and contribute

to its academic mission” (Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals, 2018, p. 12). It further details, The LGBTQIA+ director/professional partners with faculty, staff, students, and administrators in the core mission of higher education—research, teaching, learning, and service. The LGBTQIA+ director/professional has the ability to collaborate with faculty across disciplines in curriculum transformation to: incorporate LGBTIA+ issues into existing courses; develop curriculum for courses focused on, or inclusive of, LGBTQIA+ content; and support the implementation of LGBTQIA+ studies or other formal academic programs focused on gender and sexuality. (Consortium, 2018, p. 12)

I can most impact the academic life of the institution when I am also in the classroom, and when I am able to exercise my passions for curriculum design. When in the classroom, whether it be through an education course or a women’s and gender studies course, I’m able to learn more about the campus community through these interactions. This is important to me first and foremost because I love the academic side of university life. Through teaching, I have a better idea of the experiences of faculty and the various support faculty receive depending on their department on campus. It is also through teaching that I’m able to interact with students I likely never would have had the opportunity to meet in my fulltime role on campus. It provides me with a better pulse of the ideologies held by the general student body, and it also provides a reach to students who may be interested in my office but perhaps wouldn’t have heard of it otherwise. Lastly, it’s important to me to continue to hone my craft and to continue to teach, despite a fulltime administrative role.

Establishing the Groundwork As a director of an LGBTQ office, there are numerous ways to impact the unofficial curriculum of an institution. In many ways it is easier to increase LGBTQ visibility through programs than it is to begin to understand where the institution stands with LGBTQ course offerings. Several of the first year initiatives from the office increased LGBTQ visibility, witnessed through increased LGBTQ student engagement and the number of students who are out on campus. It takes additional effort for a staff person to gain access and ability to influence the academic life of a university. A usual first ally is a women’s and gender studies (WGS)

department. At my institution, there is a WGS department, but it includes only one fulltime faculty person. Limited resources mean limited WGS courses, and a history of only a few LGBTQ offerings over the years. Once again, the CPI and IE proved beneficial in establishing the need for more LGBTQ course offerings. Though there is a minor through WGS, there are no degree offerings. This issue was brought to my attention early in my first year by the same group of students who helped plan the office’s first several events. The students often asked me lots of questions, as in many cases I was the first openly LGBTQ adult willing to talk about my experiences with them. When I shared my educational experiences, they were excited about the prospect of a queer theory course. It was through these conversations that I introduced students to the likes of Audre Lorde, José Esteban Muñoz, Judith Butler, and Bayard Rustin. It was through these conversations that I realized how important LGBTQ representation in an institution’s official curriculum is. It does not take national benchmarks to establish what LGBTQ course offerings mean to students. In every situation, in every conversation with LGBTQ students about LGBTQ minors, LGBTQ courses, and LGBTQ study abroad programs, their faces brighten. Always they express excitement over LGBTQ course offerings, and seeing their identities reflected in university- sponsored academic programs. The CPI considers several aspects of academic life, and our institution was coming in short. Recommendations included a concerted effort to incorporate LGBTQ issues into existing curriculum, adding an LGBTQ Studies major or minor, and demonstrate that the institution actively recruited faculty for their LGBTQ-related research. Funds to create these large-scale changes were not feasible overnight efforts. However, there was support for creating additional coursework to represent LGBTQ histories and experiences. The institution had set a precedence of working with student affairs offices for study abroad programs. One such program was an annual alternative spring break experience to Mexico City. This week-long experience is a collaboration between the Latino resource office, an academic department, and campus recreation. I shared the details of this study away experience with my wife one evening after learning about it in a meeting. Over the years, I’d found her travel stories fascinating. She had bicycled Europe on a high school trip, lived in South America for a year teaching English in Colombia and Ecuador, worked a summer in India and another summer in Vancouver, among others. She looked me straight in the eye when I told her

of Mexico City and said, “You should do that.” I wasn’t sure what “that” could be, but I felt up to the challenge of designing a study away experience for LGBTQ students. I made a point to meet with the study abroad director to discuss potential needs of international LGBTQ students. In our meeting, I shared my educational experiences, my love for teaching, and the conversation I had with my wife. We talked about the need for additional LGBTQ opportunities, and I mentioned the struggle our institution would face in increasing our CPI academic life rating. Benchmarking tools are great for guiding LGBTQ efforts; however, small and midsize institutions are at a disadvantage. When budgets are tight, there can be no overnight changes to the general course of study requirements or newly created departments with faculty to support marginalized students. These changes are necessary, but are incremental. I began my efforts by proposing one course at a time. At one point, I worked with a department chair to create an Introduction to LGBTQ Studies course as a first step toward creating an LGBTQ studies minor (we are still working on creating the LGBTQ studies minor). When approached with a study abroad course, I focused on designing a new LGBTQ-related experience that would appeal to a wide array of students. As LGBTQ rights are often decided in state capitals and courtrooms, it became increasingly important to call students’ attention to policy changes and how those changes can impact their lives. It was important to provide additional visibility around LGBTQ histories. I wanted LGBTQ students to feel as if they had all of the possibilities as their cisgender, heterosexual peers. “Would you be interested in creating a study abroad program for LGBTQ students?” the study abroad director asked in our first meeting. “I would love to create a program like that! What would it entail?” “It could really entail anything you would want it to be. There are some requirements, for example, it must be tied to a course. You could create the experience and work with a faculty person for the course.” “I just think it would be an incredible experience for LGBTQ students…I can’t imagine what that would have felt like as a college student, to travel with other LGBTQ people and learn about different histories. I would love to put some thought into this and get back with you. Off the top of my head, I care most that it is tied to real educational outcomes. There needs to be an academic purpose. Secondly, I need to think about where the safest places in the world would be to travel with a group of LGBTQ students.”

I could not believe the reality of the conversation. When I returned to my office and shared the news with students, they were ecstatic. Having never studied abroad myself, I was surprised to learn of the number of scholarships available to students. I promised the students that if we were able to make it happen, we would ensure that it was accessible for LGBTQ students who were financially independent, which represented many of the students I regularly worked with. “It will be about LGBTQ histories, experiences, policies, and culture,” I explained. “Where do you suppose students would be interested in exploring?” “Paris,” was the overwhelming response.

Considerations for LGBTQ Study Abroad Programs There are no studies on the numbers or experiences of LGBTQ college students studying abroad. In the United States, there are few universities that offer LGBTQ-themed study abroad programs. In my state, the institution that founded the first LGBTQ center had also created a study abroad program. The program was a collaboration between an academic department and the LGBTQ center. The experience was LGBTQ-themed and included two-weeks in Europe at the conclusion of the academic year. The format of that program, and their willingness to resource share, gave me the confidence to move forward with the program design. “I want to explore experiences of exile, resistance, and inclusion,” I wondered out loud to my wife one evening. “I want students to think about policy and government, and the importance of civic engagement. There should be lots of LGBTQ representation and culture. Basically, if we are going to travel with LGBTQ students, it must be to a place where there are glitter, rainbows, and open arms for our students on the other side. I don’t even know what that looks like.” “We have to go to Amsterdam,” my wife replied. “Amsterdam? I don’t think the students would want to go to Amsterdam. They are most interested in Paris.” My wife opened my laptop and directed me to explore the Netherlands and the City of Amsterdam. A quick search of Amsterdam provided several incredible opportunities. The city housed the LGBTQ National Archives of the Netherlands as well as one of only two homomonuments in the world, created to commemorate and memorialize LGBTQ people across the world who have experienced violence. The Netherlands was the first country in the world to

legalize same sex marriage. Lastly, it is considered a friendly destination for first-time travelers. As this would not only be many of my students’ first passports, but mine as well, a first stop that boasted inclusiveness for student learners, seemed a perfect destination. Knowing my students’ interest in Paris, and the endless LGBTQ cultural opportunities the city presented, I felt we needed an in-between stop. Located approximately two and a half hours south of Amsterdam by train is Brussels, Belgium. Brussels is also often listed as a top LGBTQ inclusive city in the world. Belgium was the second country in the world to legalize same sex marriage. Brussels is home to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), the European Union, and the European Parliament. Paris is located approximately one and a half hours south of Brussels. When I pitched the program idea to students, they were ecstatic.

Designing an LGBTQ Inclusive Study Abroad Program There are few resources to guide LGBTQ study abroad program design, and there are many additional considerations to be made. The Association of International Educators (NAFSA), Rainbow Special Interest Group (SIG) provides a centralized collection of some study abroad resources for LGBTQ students on the resource page of their website (www.rainbowsig.org). GoAbroad.com is a collection of study abroad programs across the world, and the only place where a guide for studying abroad as an LGBTQ student is accessible. With or without guiding resources, it is clear that the first consideration when traveling with LGBTQ students is safety. Safety measures must involve considerations of both physical and mental wellness throughout the experience. Most of the students I was working with had never traveled internationally. In fact, most of the students that participated in this experience had limited domestic travel prior to our departure. Pre-travel discussions must include safety plans. Physical safety is the main concern while traveling. There are many countries across the world where it is still illegal to identify as LGBTQ, and where people are still sentenced to death for sexual acts between same sex partners. Across the world, transgender people experience higher rates of violence. For first time international travelers, the process of the travel can be as daunting as the time in a new country itself. For example, the Netherlands is widely considered one of the most LGBTQ inclusive countries in the world. Even if the only destination for LGBTQ students from the United States is the Netherlands, there is still much travel to get to the Netherlands and there can be much travel within the country once one is there. Traveling through

an airport as a transgender person can be traumatizing due to invasive screenings by the TSA, particularly when one’s legal name and chosen name do not match on legal documents. While there, one also has to consider their comfort level of being open about their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. As an LGBTQ office director, I work with students to help them find the places on campus where they feel comfortable being out of their metaphorical closet. Traveling, but especially traveling abroad, requires a constant awareness of the clues we present about ourselves to the world. After potentially overcoming the challenges of coming out in their home countries, LGBTQ students who head abroad can be overwhelmed when faced with coming out all over again, except this time in a completely foreign and sometimes unfriendly environment for people who identify as LGBTQ that may or may not lack an understanding or acceptance of LGBTQ students. (Go Abroad Writing Team, July 31, 2017, p.3)

When preparing LGBTQ students to travel abroad, we discuss everything from the clothing we wear to the names listed on our passports. Physical safety while traveling and the mental strain traveling can impose on an LGBTQ traveler are additional considerations. For example, if a transgender student is forced to use a passport with their dead name, they will likely experience more emotional trauma when traveling than their cisgender peers. Lastly, there is safety in numbers. Study away and study abroad programs designed for LGBTQ students teach them that their histories, cultures, and opportunities are just as important as their heterosexual, cisgender peers. Accessibility is always an issue for LGBTQ students. Since there are few LGBTQ-themed study abroad programs, and the LGBTQ student population that I serve is often financially independent, it is essential not only that they see themselves reflected in these programs, but that there are also institutional scholarships available for LGBTQ students who want to study abroad. An additional hope was to share an experience with students that would make them believe in the possibility of travel, believing that travel experiences are possible, even for those of us who lived much of our lives without the option or fear of traveling while LGBTQ.

Designing the Course After researching the possible destinations and creating some content around the theme, I met again with the study abroad department to share the program. In the original proposal, I wrote, This study abroad program takes LGBTQ and ally students to Amsterdam, Brussels, Brugge, and Paris to explore LGBTQ experiences of exile, resistance, and inclusion. Students will enroll in an 8-week course before traveling as a group, where we will examine three different government structures in three different European cities. Students will consider the historical and social impact on LGBTQ lives, and will make comparisons to LGBTQ experiences in the United States. When abroad, students will meet with historians, educators, policy makers, grassroots activists, and community organizations based on LGBTQ work in each of the cities (B.Meyer, 2015).

There were three student learning outcomes for the overall program. 1. Students will gain better understanding of how different government structures impact the lives of LGBTQ individuals. 2. Students will gain better understanding of gender and sexuality in the United States, through comparisons of global LGBTQ perspectives and representations. 3. Students will work to build transnational solidarity among LGBTQ lives and experiences.

The goals were lofty, and my experience traveling with students was limited. Nevertheless, with the support of the study abroad department, the division of student affairs, a collection of enthusiastic students, and a supportive partner, I embarked on the journey to create the LGBTQ-themed study abroad course, pursued an opportunity to scout the program in person, and facilitated a two-week experience abroad with a group of students and a faculty peer. At the start of the spring semester in 2015, I shared the educational outcomes and proposed itinerary with my vice president of student affairs and the study abroad office. At this point, there was additional funding for international travel and a sponsorship my vice president’s office created to support student affairs staff interested in designing study abroad programs. Years later, looking back on the budget stresses public, midsize universities have experienced in my region,

I’m even more grateful that I was provided an opportunity to travel abroad, meet with the partners in each of the cities, and ensure that LGBTQ safety concerns were answered before traveling with students. In June of 2015, 11 months before I was to travel with students, the university sponsored a scouting experience. It is not required to travel to host cities before traveling with students. Due to budget constraints, it is unlikely that I will ever again scout an international experience before taking students. There are resources available for LGBTQ faculty and staff traveling with LGBTQ students, most of which come through the numerous support systems study abroad departments ensure for their students and colleagues. Having never traveled internationally, it was helpful for me to visit cities in advance and to learn how to navigate spaces where I did not understand the language in order to better prepare the experience for our students.

Revising the Experience In each of the cities, I reached out to various organizations and individuals when designing the experience. I do not speak a second language, so I was careful to reach out to English-speaking individuals with each organization, identified through their websites. Knowing my own language restrictions as well as those of my students, cities where English speaking students could traverse on their own was an important part of the plan. Further, traveling to each of the cities provided firsthand experience I wouldn’t have been able to share with the students otherwise. Because I had the opportunity to visit each of the sites we would attend together, I was better equipped to answer questions about the challenges of the experience, the expectations in each of the cities, and tips of what to watch out for. Amsterdam was indeed LGBTQ inclusive and unbelievably beautiful. “It’s like you step off of a plane and find yourself in the middle of a fairy tale setting,” I often explained to students. “The Dutch Resistance Museum is incredible, I think you’ll be inspired by the stories of allyship.” “You won’t believe the LGBTQ archives, located on the 6th floor of the public library. It’s located beside the central train station with windows overlooking the canals and the city. They house LGBTQ archives for all of the Netherlands and many European countries.”

“Yes, we will absolutely spend time in the red light district, because we have a meeting at the Prostitution Information Center.” When designing the experience, I constantly floated ideas past students, considered their feedback, and made adjustments accordingly. “We’ll consider history and exile in Amsterdam, policy and government in Brussels, art and community in Paris, and culture and representation throughout,” I offered to students. By the time I officially began recruiting for the study abroad experience in the fall of 2015, there were five students committed to attend. Through conversations with these students, I settled on the cities and the experiences. Through these discussions I better learned what students would be interested in exploring abroad. I met with several experienced study abroad colleagues and learned the importance of reasonable expectations. I worked with the study abroad department to advertise the program at a study abroad fair. We utilized student organizations, social media, and hanging posters across campus to recruit students for the experience. I approached a friend who was a tenured faculty member to co-facilitate the experience and the course with me. We advertised through WGS courses and teacher education courses. At the end of our recruiting efforts, by the December 1st deadline for our program, 12 students confirmed participation in the program and the institutions first LGBTQ study abroad experience was set to leave campus in May 2016. The study abroad experience landed in Amsterdam, where we spent three days and two nights. After Amsterdam, we moved on to Brussels, where we spent our first weekend. Since we stayed near the city center, many food and shopping options were walkable and students had their first day off in five days. On Sunday, we traveled to the medieval city of Brugge on the North Sea, simply to provide an experience students probably wouldn’t have had otherwise. While in Brugge, some students ventured to the North Sea while others opted to explore medieval churches or world class chocolatiers. After five days and four nights in Brussels, including two full days of policy and government meetings, we moved on to conclude our time in Paris. We spent five days and six nights in Paris, where we visited museums, the LGBTQ center, and various LGBTQ cultural sites. Students had two evenings and one full day open when in Paris for free time and exploration. I am hesitant to share in great detail the experiences of the individuals traveling in the group, in honor of their anonymity as a part of this experience. Appendix B includes the full study abroad itinerary.

Traveling with LGBTQ Students The LGBTQ study abroad program was set for its second excursion in May, 2021. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, this experience is postponed until May, 2022. Since the LGBTQ study abroad experience has only happened once, I will not share specific details in order to preserve the anonymity and personal experiences of those who traveled with us on the inaugural course. What I will offer, as the person who designed the course, are some tips for improving study abroad experiences for LGBTQ students based on my journey with this endeavor. We hoped to travel with 15 students on the experience due to the cost savings we would see with that number of attendees. We were just shy of that number, but we were able to make up for the cost by working together to host a fundraiser, and by working with the study abroad department to find scholarships for our students. Every student on the study abroad experience who applied for a scholarship received one. With the exception of one student, most of the $3,400 expenses were covered. Aside from additional costs incurred while traveling (souvenirs, non-group sponsored activities, and additional food), most students paid approximately $1,000 for the 8-week course and two-week experience abroad. In the eight weeks prior to departure, we met as a group once per week for our course requirement and to prepare for travel. It was during these class meetings that we discussed airport experiences and talked in great detail about Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screenings, including descriptions of the pat down process. As students confirmed their place within the program, we worked with them individually along the way to ensure that identification matched the names they were traveling under. One week before departure, we contacted the local international airport to provide advance warning that we would be traveling with LGBTQ students. We devised a buddy system to alleviate safety concerns, insisting that at no point would a student venture out on their own. Of all of this, looking back, it was most important to offer students adequate time to transition between meetings and moments, and to ensure that future endeavors include daily check-ins and time to process challenging experiences.

CHAPTER SEVEN: AN ONGOING JOURNEY IN THE FIGHT FOR TRANSGENDER INCLUSION, EQUITY, AND JUSTICE

An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law. (Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia 2020)

I began LGBTQ advocacy work because of workplace discrimination. When I was outed, it seemed as if my rural community had never considered an LGBTQ person could be living among them. There was a level of unintelligibility around my “outing” and perceived sexual orientation. As a result, I experienced multiple modes of physical and emotional violence, and lost nearly every person who was part of my first 30 years. At the time, I was shocked at how few people were willing to stand publicly by my side. I later understood that some feared retaliation if they did. Policy isn’t everything, but it certainly provides some ground to stand on. Until June 15, 2020, it was completely legal to discriminate against a person in the workplace because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. As an outed educator, there were no policies in place to protect me from harassment. Even if multiple allies had emerged, it would not have changed the fact that my hometown was no longer a safe place for me, or for any LGBTQ person. When a population is not considered in policy, it sends a clear message about how an institution values that group of people. When a group is not included, they are not represented. When a group is not represented, it is easier to disregard their experiences. When a group is not protected, it opens the door for additional discrimination, as seen repeatedly over the years in policy level attacks against the transgender community. For the first time ever, there are statutory workplace protections for LGBTQ people. Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision; exactly what Title VII forbids. (Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia 2020)

As an outed LGBTQ educator, this protection could have impacted the way my story unfolded. Including sexual orientation and gender identity as part of Title VII extends workplace protections for LGBTQ people, providing for many, the opportunity to consider options for being out in the workplace. It is no longer the case that an LGBTQ teacher can be discriminated against simply based on who they are or who they love. Policy isn’t everything, but once we shift policy, we can begin to influence actions.

Campus Pride Index In my community volunteerism, I work with cities that are considering adding sexual orientation and gender identity to their non-discrimination policy. Often, one argument against adding sexual orientation and gender identity is that it simply isn’t needed. Once someone told me, “I asked my lesbian neighbors if they feel discriminated against and they say they don’t, so I’m just not sure if we need an ordinance here.” Another community leader asked, “How many gays or lesbians have actually experienced discrimination? Why would we do this if it (anti- LGBTQ bias) doesn’t even happen here?” If a population isn’t represented, where are they to report bias? Why would any LGBTQ person trust their city, school, or workplace if they are not protected? Always, there are instances of bias. Always, one instance of bias is too much. The absence of a community in policy and practice suggests interpersonal and institutional bias may exist. If an institution commits to supporting LGBTQ people through DEI efforts, administrators should begin by examining university policy. As a new director in the field, I relied on the CPI as a key tool for identifying needed institutional changes. As a newly founded office of one, there was a small budget and few resources. The university had not yet developed its IE plan, but it was clear that we were at the starting point of institutionalized support for LGBTQ people. A quick review of university policy revealed no representation for transgender people. The first CPI assessment further clarified what representation should look like and provided suggestions for improvement. Over the years, the CPI has continued to serve as a good, annual assessment of institutional support and commitment to LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff. At my institution, leadership appreciates the careful assessment provided by the CPI report and the five-star rating system to recognize efforts. Institutional policy and procedural change remains a core component of my work. When working with limited resources, the CPI is still a valuable influence on strategies to better infuse

LGBTQ equity within institutional IE efforts. Infusing LGBTQ issues within the fabric of the institution calls for first addressing any gaps within university policies and practices, primarily around support for transgender students, faculty, and staff. This chapter details a journey of policy change, education, and advocacy, by considering efforts to infuse transgender inclusion into the institutional experience.

A Starting Point There is no collective “LGBTQ” community. Workplace discrimination may now be prohibited, but there are still no protections in housing or accommodation for LGBTQ people. Just days before SCOTUS’s recent groundbreaking ruling, on the anniversary of the Pulse shooting, Obama-era healthcare protections for transgender people were rolled back by the current administration. While some celebrate workplace protections, transgender people are subjected to a healthcare system where gender identity is no longer recognized as sex discrimination. This is not new. There is a long history of centering cisgender, white experiences in the movement. In my role as an LGBTQ director, it was essential to disrupt this space. Transgender people can still be (and often are) denied access to facilities and routinely have their basic civil rights dictated through legislation. It is the role of the director to stay abreast of these policy changes and to work within the institution to shift policies to include gender identity and gender expression, and to shift the culture toward LGBTQ inclusion. This work is essential. According to the Consortium, a director must have “significant knowledge of and experience with policy and practice related to LGBTQIA+ communities in the broader context of equity, diversity, and inclusion” (Consortium, 2018, p. 12).The fifth core competency further details that a director must also impart, The ability to incorporate intersections of sexual and romantic orientation and gender identity and expression into ongoing diversity and inclusion conversations, practices, and policies requires both deep knowledge and significant interpersonal skills. The LGBTQIA+ director/professional must remain up-to-date and have knowledge about: 1. Federal, state, and local laws that affect LGBTQIA+ people (i.e., both in terms of their LGBTQIA+ and intersecting identities) with a special emphasis on continuously changing laws and ordinances, emerging legislation, and Title IX guidance (Consortium, 2018, p. 12).

In my role, this policy work has usually focused on transgender inclusion. As a white, queer cisgender woman, this takes additional work and education on my part. Part of our responsibility as directors is the ability to survey the landscape and practice transparency. We must be clear about what we know and how we experience life versus the students we serve. For example, our institution is a PWI, but there are Black and Latinx transgender students on campus. It is essential that I recognize my limitations as a transgender ally. I support all transgender students and work to create positive representations of transgender identities. However, as a cisgender person leading efforts around gender identity and gender expression, I must constantly stay abreast of available resources to bridge my scope of expertise. Even now, years into my role as an LGBTQ director, it is essential to ensure that the correct voices are shared when acting as an advocate for a marginalized community. For me, that means recognizing what my skill set allows and strategizing how to create representation and educational opportunities in areas where I need back up.

Situating the Issue – A Starting Point It is no surprise that there was a lot of work to do around institutional change and commitment to LGBTQ inclusion when I first stepped on campus—it was a new position with a new director. As discussed previously, the institution was the second in the state to fund a fulltime position. Nationally, positive representations of LGBTQ issues were only recently covered in the media. On campus, as work began to develop IE as a framework for DEI efforts, the institution seemed to back up their support for LGBTQ people as an included, valued part of the campus community through support of the LGBTQ office. However, there was a gaping hole in support for transgender students. At that point, gender identity and gender expression were not included in the institution’s non-discrimination policy. While there was some established support for “LGBTQ” people through the office’s creation, the institution’s first CPI assessment provided some back up to the identified institutional gaps in transgender equity. Specifically, the gaps in equity for transgender students, faculty, and staff included:  No institutional policy protecting gender identity or gender expression.  No way for a student to process a name change without a legal document.  No way for a student to change their name, pronoun, or gender identity on a class roster.

 No way for a student to change their name, pronoun, or gender identity on university identification cards.  No gender inclusive housing options.  No inclusive restroom signage.  Few gender inclusive restrooms, including only one academic building.  No Transgender Studies course offerings. In many ways, the institution began this work at a very basic level. Within days of beginning my new position on campus a student visited the office to share their campus experiences. They identified themselves as transgender and said they hoped to get involved in the office, but expressed concern about campus safety and culture for transgender students. A few weeks before their visit to my office, they were verbally assaulted in a women’s restroom by another student who accused them of being in the “wrong place.” Several transgender students told me they felt safe in the office, but confided they weren’t sure which bathrooms were safe. In some cases, transgender students visited the office because they were called slurs on their walk across campus to university housing. Campus was generally accepting of drag shows and LGBTQ office efforts, but there was no representation of transgender people.

Awareness and Visibility “What do we need to do to add gender identity and gender expression to the non- discrimination policy,” I asked repeatedly my first months in my role. The institution’s non- discrimination policy needed adapted to include gender identity and gender expression. The institution had just created an LGBTQ office and was embracing IE as a DEI framework, so it seemed this would be an easy shift. “You have to write a proposal for a policy change,” was the reply. It turns out, changing university policy is a long process. It is difficult to bring additional benchmarks up to speed— transgender inclusive facilities, name change procedure, housing options—when basic protections aren’t in place. The institution would likely adopt gender identity and gender expression to the policy, but I would first need to research the topic, present comparisons with like-institutions, and establish guidelines before sending it through an approval process that ends with the board of regents. While I navigated university structures to learn how to propose an institutional policy change, I worked closely with students to better understand the experiences

of transgender students. Repeatedly, students reported feeling invisible. Campus needed widespread introductions to the experiences of transgender students, faculty, and staff. If transgender students felt invisible, visibility was an essential starting point. With no out transgender faculty or staff on campus, I reached out to a local activist who was well-known for their Trans competency and allyship trainings. They agreed to come to campus to provide leadership and students an opportunity to engage in a workshop that covered basic issues of inequity and justice for transgender people. Forty people attended the workshop, the first of its kind at the institution. Participants included student affairs leadership, faculty, and some student leaders, several of whom expressed that it was an “eye opening” experience. It was eye opening because there was very little transgender visibility on campus. It was the first time there were recommendations in front of us and the list was daunting. “How many transgender students do you think we have,” I was routinely asked. There was no way of knowing, and with so little visibility, there was little confidence that it was safe to be out as transgender on campus. Students assured me that there was a large number of transgender students on campus, but many of them were not out. The workshop presented a first opportunity to engage in an educational setting, in discussion about our campus’s efforts. We planned a follow up workshop for the next semester to continue education and awareness, and the efforts to increase transgender inclusion increased.

Driving Culture to Influence Policy Change According to GLAAD, approximately 80% of adults in the United States believe they do not know a transgender person, and therefore gather all of their information about transgender people through the media (GLAAD, 2008). There were many transgender students on campus, but there were few reasons why they would believe it was safe to be out. The institution was only beginning to consider gender identity and gender expression, and I knew that transgender visibility would be a most important first step. On a campus where there were no protections in place for transgender people it is understandable why few trans folks were willing to speak publically about their experiences. As a cisgender person and a new professional in the field, I had no experience designing or implementing plans for widespread policy and procedural changes to better support transgender people. I needed additional resources to help me become a better advocate for transgender students, colleagues, and community members. It was by chance

that funding was available my first year for this growth, so I grabbed the opportunity to attend the National LGBTQ Taskforce Creating Change Conference. The Creating Change Conference hosts daylong institutes, including one for the Consortium of LGBTQ Higher Education Professionals. This opportunity honed my work as it provided the ability to connect with colleagues from across the country who were from more established offices or centers. I was equipped with additional resources to create a trans ally training. While there, I also attended a keynote address given by actress, Laverne Cox. I knew immediately that she could be exactly what our campus needed to collectively wake up to the needs of transgender people. Efforts to infuse transgender inclusion were focused and incremental. The early years of my campus advocacy for transgender students often consisted of my repeatedly calling attention to the gaps in safety and protection. We needed greater visibility than I could provide. It was because my students spoke constantly of their love for the Netflix show, Orange is the New Black, that I attended the keynote. Laverne Cox delivers a powerful, yet accessible message. She balances academics with personal experience, and is beautifully transparent with her audience about her experiences coming of age as a successful, transgender woman. At Creating Change, she spoke to a ballroom full of hundreds of people. I wondered how campus efforts around transgender inclusion would change if hundreds of people on campus had an opportunity to receive her message. When I returned to campus, I began laying the groundwork for an unlikely approach for bringing transgender equity to the forefront of DEI efforts. The transgender student organization was meeting regularly, but meetings remained confidential as there was much progress left to be made on campus. As my second year approached, it was clear that education, advocacy, and awareness of transgender student experiences would be a focus of my work moving forward. It was at the same time that a cabinet level person was hired to oversee inclusive excellence initiatives. Having an ally on cabinet level is essential, and I was grateful to see their allyship immediately in action. At the start of the semester, the IE advisor made an official recommendation that gender identity and gender expression be added immediately to the institution’s non-discrimination policy. After a year of working on the issue with no movement, the policy was amended on this recommendation. The moment transgender people are included in non-discrimination polices, there is procedural ground to stand on when organizing around initiatives and inequity. When the non- discrimination policy was amended, it was still the case that transgender students had no way to

change their name without legal documentation. In order to live authentically on campus, transgender students were forced to constantly out themselves to professors, staff, colleagues, and peers in hopes of avoiding being dead named or misgendered. Constantly, transgender students visited the office upset because they were repeatedly dead named and misgendered by those they came out to. There were no inclusive housing options available for students. Culture can drive policy. Campus programming can impact culture. The decision to bring Laverne Cox to campus was a direct effort to utilize culture to push policy change. It is always political in the era of shrinking operating budgets to spend large dollars on a single speaker, but it is worth it when the point is to get a message to people who would not receive that message otherwise. Campus needed positive representations of transgender people and we could not expect our transgender community to share their experiences until it was safe(r) to do so. At the time, Cox was perhaps the most famous transgender woman in the United States. She was nominated for an Emmy Award and had just graced the cover of Time Magazine, the first transgender woman to do so. It seemed every person I spoke with on campus, regardless of their background, loved the show. It took anecdotal stories, meetings with transgender students, and CPI data about on campus transgender inclusion, but a couple of people in leadership supported the effort. Through campus and community relationships, and collaboration with numerous university departments, we were able to secure her visit. After receiving the donation, I was charged with filling the space. In this case, benefit must outweigh the cost. As predicted, student excitement about the actress’s visit was high. Tickets were primarily reserved for current students, faculty, and staff, with a limited number available to alumni and community members. The largest ballroom available on that date held approximately 700 people, and it was filled to capacity. In many ways the event served as the office’s official introduction to campus and the community. The timing was impeccable due to the popularity of the show, the power of her message, and the incredible needs of transgender people on campus. As was the case at the conference months before, her message was brilliant. There is no way I could have captivated 700 people for two hours about the experiences and needs of transgender people. As a cisgender person, those stories are not mine to tell. Laverne Cox’s message supported every recommendation we knew we needed on campus. If the institution was committed to IE, transgender people must be included in all DEI efforts. Campus partners who

attended the event better understood the issues. People across campus spoke about the event for weeks. Her visit sparked discussion, and then it sparked change.

Programming Drives Culture Spending high dollars on one programming event is risky business. For me, the risk was worth the reward. Due to the hours students spent in my office discussing life, I was aware of the high interest in the Netflix television show. Through conversations with students and colleagues across the state, I was confident we would have the numbers to justify the event. The concern from my leadership also pertained to the message. How did I know this was the best use of the money? What benefit would this event provide to our students? As administrators, we must use our privilege and position to provide positive experiences for marginalized students. Black and Brown transgender people, especially women, experience extraordinary rates of bias and discrimination. However, there are also many examples of strong, beautiful transgender people making a change in the world. It is an obligation of the director to identify gaps and provide opportunities. In this case, I knew Black and Brown transgender students, but they had literally no representation on campus. Bringing Lavern Cox to campus provided a representation of a beautiful, brilliant, Black transgender woman. Seven hundred people interacted with her message that evening, and learned about her lived experiences. Students that had no interest in transgender issues, but loved the show, were provided insight into the experiences of transgender people. The reach of this message was far beyond what a one-person office could manage. We needed a widespread awakening to the struggles of transgender students, and this program was one way concerted efforts began. This powerful, visible messaging served as a starting point for future efforts. After direct tips on the importance of pronouns, respecting a name, and numerous anecdotes and personal experiences, some campus partners came forward to help with initiates.

Culture Impacts Policies and Practices If an institution values transgender students, those efforts must be intentional and collaborative. One person cannot be everything for everyone. One cisgender person cannot possibly articulate all of the needs transgender people experience. By design, institutional systems erase transgender students and enact harm. Over the years, our institution has continued

to grow trans inclusive policies and procedures, but continued lack of resources periodically result in an institution enacting harm on marginalized students. An example of this is the name change procedure. I adapted the name change procedure based on a model from a larger institution. Though I had pushed for a name change procedure on campus for years, no changes were made because the operating system was unable to make those changes. After proposing the name change procedure, and working through institutional channels to push the change, I began working with one person in IT to make the changes. This process looked like the two of us sitting in a room, identifying possible locations where a chosen name needed to appear. I process all of these name changes, and I continue to work with IT to adapt the operating system by hand when a student reports being dead named. This work never ends. In March, I received the following from Campus Pride regarding our institutional campus climate, Due to your overall high marks, your campus is a leader for LGBTQ-inclusive policies, programs and practices. Campus Pride encourages all campuses to continue monitoring the quality of LGBTQ life by listening and responding to the needs of your LGBTQ population as well as conducting regular assessments of attitudes and perceptions of the campus community toward LGBTQ people. (Campus Pride, 2020)

In June, the institution released Spring 2020 academic honors. Due to a glitch in the system, only legal names were electronically pulled. This resulted in every transgender student who had processed a name change, but not a legal name change, being dead named while receiving an academic recognition from the institution. A student reached out immediately to share their experience. This is what is at stake when the support of an entire community falls upon one person. This is what is at stake when budget cuts decrease support for our most marginalized students. Today, I looked at my email and found out that I had made the Dean's list. Yes! I jumped around and smiled for the first real-time since last year. I was so proud. I felt like my hard work had paid off. I still do. I accomplished something when it felt like nothing wanted me to succeed. I go to the website to look at my name just to really feel it and be happy and see it. When I got to the website, I did not see my name. I saw my dead-name.

My dead-name. I don't know how to describe how I feel. Heartbroken, and I'm trying not to let my moment sour. I never want to see that name again. Tell a trans person you love them today. Edit: Thank you to the Programs and Services and the wonderful Bonnie Meyer for reaching out to me immediately about this. It means a lot to me! (Personal communication, June 2020)

CHAPTER EIGHT: REFLECTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

On our campus, the LGBTQ community is welcomed. When you are looking to get involved as an LGBTQ person, you see yourself represented in leadership positions across campus, including fraternity and sorority life, and student government. As an LGBTQ person, you don’t have to seek leadership positions only within LGBTQ organizations because your voice is welcomed in every space on campus. (Student, personal communication, May 16, 2019)

Creating the LGBTQ office has been, and continues to be, a curriculum project. If curriculum is the totality of a person’s experience with an institution, then an aim of this work is to ensure that 100% of a campus community interacts with positive representations of LGBTQ people, histories, and issues. The LGBTQ campus community must be a visible, supported, thriving part of campus culture. I began this study with an intent to uncover some of the ways the LGBTQ office has contributed to the overall DEI mission of the institution. The institution’s five-star rating on the Campus Pride Index, the percentage of LGBTQ students self-identifying on campus, and the increasing number of LGBTQ student organizations indicate a supported, thriving culture. However, even as I process this work, I continue to question the role of inclusive excellence, and what it looks like in practice. The desire to tell these stories comes from a desire to pull out the hidden memories and experiences to better understand how they impact my work. I use currere in order to better understand my educational journey as a founding LGBTQ director. I am the institution’s walking LGBTQ archive. Engaging in deep autobiographical reflection provides a means to access the forgotten archives and to pull out the small details. Why did I make that decision? Why was that the direction we took? What curricular impacts, if any, has the office made on campus? What insights can I provide about this work to my institution and to my field? What does this work mean? What would the four moments of currere reveal about my personal and professional educational and institutional journey?

Looking Back Currere is “…a four step process that involves viewing life experience and our interpretations of reality as a venture into curriculum theorizing, that is ‘the scholarly

effort to understand the curriculum, conceived… as 'complicated conversation’’ (Pinar, 2012, p. 1) and meant to answer the question, ‘What has been and what is now the nature of my educational experience?’" (Pinar, 1994, p. 20)

In the first step of the currere process, "one returns to the past, to capture it as it was" (Pinar, 1994, p. 21). In the regression process, I call upon memories buried within my subconscious. I began by gathering data and resources to poke the darkest parts of my mind. Before writing, I reviewed my personal notes and office archive, including seven years of calendar appointments, forms of communication (e.g. journals, social media private messages, and letters), and personal journals and reflections from the first few years. I am reminded of the chaos of the daily work. There is always an issue that needs resolved, an initiative on the backburner, a person who needs council, or a celebration to be had. After spending time with these memories, moments resurfaced. The four vignettes included in this study were born of hidden memories embedded within big, indelible moments. Over the last seven years, I have been involved in many discussions and provided countless recommendations for LGBTQ inclusion. There are endless stories of lessons learned, policy wins, shifting curriculum, and moments of shared joy. I reflect upon supporting student activists—from the LGBTQ pre-service educators who consider teacher activism for the first time, to the students who don rainbows and walk in their first pride march on campus, to current students standing on the front lines of protests in response to police brutality; the power of student voice remains the most beautiful part of this work. The vignettes shared in this study were most important to tell because they represent the power of student voice in situations when it mattered the most. The vignettes are unique because each began with a key issue that arose within my first year in the role and details some student experiences with those issues over the years. The students with whom I have had the privilege of working with have shown that a small group of passionate, committed people truly can change the world, or in this case, a university. In this study, I use currere as an approach to illuminate some of those indelible moments. The vignettes share some of the ways we create culture where it seemingly doesn’t exist, and how we situate those experiences in places where they can’t be missed. At times, culture looks like drag shows or pop up pride festivals. At other times, it looks like taking a stand against homophobic (or racist) corporations that want to do business with a university. Creating culture

allows us to share an important part of our community with the intent of building bridges. In every situation, the point of these experiences were teachable moments. The goal of each moment was to further infuse positive representations of LGBTQ people throughout the institutional experience. It is clear that I used programming to create culture. When serving as a director in this role in a PWI, it is essential that programming is intersectional. Strategic programming forces opportunities to engage with LGBTQ culture, including for those who would never seek out the experience. The purpose is visibility—a constant reminder that the LGBTQ community is here, and we look lots of different ways. My strategy for riskier programs—allocating a large percentage of my annual budget—to big name speakers was because it is essential to provide diverse LGBTQ perspectives. Speakers like Laverne Cox, Michael Sam, Karamo Brown, and Nina West reach people on campus we may have not touched otherwise. The disconnect that arose from these programs lies in missed opportunities. When 700 people come out on a weeknight to hear from a speaker like Laverne Cox, there are numerous further educational opportunities that could arise. Looking back, I wish I had better connected with the women’s and gender studies department, education department, athletics, social work, and theater. Culture can impact policy change, but it can also build community. It can provide ways to see oneself reflected in their own spaces across campus. Tighter connections with academic departments and leadership programs would extend opportunities for growth and development.

Looking Forward According to Pinar (2012), “the student of currere imagines possible futures, including fears as well as fulfillments” (p. 46). In the next phase of currere, After one is relaxed, one thinks of the future, of tomorrow, of next week,…and so on. Since our interest is in educational experience, gently bring attention back to matters associated with your intellectual interests, and allow your mind to work free associatively. Record what comes… You might imagine a future, perhaps a year hence or perhaps several years hence; describe it. (Pinar, 2014, p. 25)

I live in the present as a director who feels supported by her institution. The institution features office initiatives on the university’s social media home page several times per year. The

president and cabinet members attend office events, speak at Lavender Graduation, and show their support for LGBTQ work through their physical and verbal actions. As I consider the implications of this study, as a director of an office that has had some success infusing LGBTQ equity initiatives, I write from a place of support. As I look to the future, I see continued support. However, there is also uncertainty and inequity. With shrinking resources and Covid-19 restrictions in place for fall, I consider creative solutions to expand student support. How can I work with LGBTQ alumni, faculty, and staff to better support LGBTQ students? Budget dollars are reallocated from programming pushing for progressive change, to a VISTA position who can help with student support. As I look to the future, I better understand the reparations the institution must pay. Where will I find the time to create these expanded support systems? That work still falls upon me. Staff who they themselves have intersectional marginalized identities, who serve our most marginalized student populations cannot continue to bear the weight of budget cuts, while also bearing the weight of their own lived experiences. Institutional dollars must be allocated to marginalized student populations. Frameworks like IE are useful when an institution is committed to creating an equitable, inclusive campus community. Under IE, when the institution created an LGBTQ office, it taught the campus community that the LGBTQ community matters. Over the years, through administrative support and policy changes, a committed group of individuals has created space for a thriving LGBTQ community. It would seem some sense of IE has been achieved. However, when an office supporting marginalized student populations takes noticeable hits through budget cuts, it presents a conflicting message. An institution may provide some support for LGBTQ resources, but the work is not sustainable with one person. Under an IE model, an institution would invest more, not less, in their most marginalized communities. When I was applying for my position, I called a colleague who was serving as the LGBTQ director for a large institution to ask their advice as I hoped to enter the field. They openly shared their experiences and their challenges. As the call ended, they offered, This work is very isolating. You’re often the only person on campus in this role. There are fewer opportunities to commiserate or to plan and it can be lonely. It is so important to get connected with other people doing this work. Colleagues from other institutions and the Consortium are invaluable. (Personal Communication, July 2013)

Colleagues from other institutions and the Consortium’s support network are absolutely invaluable resources in this work. It is exhausting to staff an office supporting marginalized students with one staff person. In only two of my seven years as the LGBTQ director has the office received support in the form of an additional staff person. During those two years, our reach expanded across campus. Student visits to the office boomed. We were able to pilot a peer mentor program, develop LGBTQ courses, expand intersectional programming, and balance our time so that one of us was generally available for LGBTQ students. Annual budget cuts are routine and it was on the last day of the fiscal year that the role was reassigned from my office to the overarching center. The office has not recovered from that blow, as it is unrealistic to expect that one person can adequately serve an entire community. Recent campus climate data revealed that 25% of our overall student population identifies as part of the LGBTQ community. Based on our student population, that means approximately 3,700 students identify as either not heterosexual and/or not cisgender. The visibility and growth of the LGBTQ community on campus has been clear and consistent over the years, however few additional resources have been provided to support the office. As an office of one, it ultimately falls upon me to support our LGBTQ student population, serve in an advisory capacity as an LGBTQ expert on campus, and recommend changes to policies and practices as needed to better support the LGBTQ population. These experiences are not unique, as the LGBTQ office is not the only one that has suffered hard consequences at the hands of a budget cut. When I began my role, the office supporting Black and African American students had four fulltime staff people, including an administrative assistant. The office supporting Latinx students had two professional staff people. Both are now staffed by one person. When financial times are tough, the offices supporting some of the most marginalized students have suffered the most. Though seemingly necessary at the time, these decisions continue to be in direct contradiction to the tenets of inclusive excellence. If the DEI framework is IE, than DEI initiatives are seen as a critical component of the overall mission of an institution. As a framework, IE directs focus to eradicate issues of inequity or injustice. Policies and procedures must be changed to reflect an institution’s commitment to DEI initiatives and support of marginalized campus communities. If an institution values IE, than this action should be visible in all aspects of campus culture, including budgets and allocated financial support.

When staff who serve marginalized student populations, who often themselves have marginalized identities, are routinely forced to bear the sacrifices of budget cuts, an institution illustrates the incredible DEI work ahead. It is an institutional injustice when staff who live with marginalized identities are forced to take on additional emotional and physical work in order to support the institution’s most marginalized student populations. As administrators, we must name this injustice. In some cases, it may be true that across the board budget cuts are necessary, but there must be transparency. Efforts to resolve the issues must move beyond committee meetings into direct action. In this case, leadership has been supportive of the LGBTQ office and there is now LGBTQ visibility in all areas and aspects of campus. However, even in the best situations, when institutional leadership drives DEI efforts, there must be intentionality in identifying and eliminating injustice. This includes the financial support and resources provided to offices serving minoritized student populations. Unique to this population is the fact that we will never know exactly how many LGBTQ people—students, faculty, and staff—are part of a campus community, because this data requires self-disclosure and it is impossible to ensure safety. The crux of my work has been to create visibility. In this case, direct action involves driving culture. A thriving LGBTQ community was already present on campus when I arrived, however they were forced, at times, to thrive in off campus spaces. The LGBTQ student organization is now 20 years old. A group of students traveled to and participated in the LGBTQ March on Washington in 2001. The LGBTQ ERG group formed in 2005 in order to fight for and achieve domestic partner benefits. I want it to be clear that LGBTQ people are here, we have always been here, and we will always be here. We are your teachers, dentists, nurses, and cashiers. The LGBTQ community is only invisible in places where it is not safe to disclose our identities or orientations. This is curricular. If an institution adheres to a framework such as IE, the needs of marginalized student populations must be deeply engrained within the fabric of the university. In this case, LGBTQ people must be positively represented in every aspect of the institution.

Living in the Present As I began my role, a new friend and colleague advised, “Whatever you do, never give up your community relationships. There will be times you will need those relationships and your community will have your back.” I am in a position of power to force positive change. Through

my personal and professional relationships, I am able to live my life openly without fear. On campus, my role is to serve the LGBTQ community. This work has involved inviting people into LGBTQ culture, providing space and grace for people to learn about allyship and practice those skills, and to fight with everything I can give when faced with injustice. The resiliency and stubbornness that emerge in my story through moments like the reoccurring NBFC issue are present because there is a supportive community behind me. There is no doubt I have called upon personal, professional, and political relationships when advocating in this role. It is also clear that I am fueled by my own experiences of injustice. As an LGBTQ director, I hold some power in conversations and decision making around these issues. Considering the office a curriculum project, I always approached the work as various curriculum issues. In some ways, I am able to better identify areas of injustice because I have seen and experienced them myself. In many ways I am able to identify areas of inequity due to my years as a community, policy, and higher education LGBTQ advocate. I am influenced by my work co- chairing a regional pride festival and now founding a community pride center. Likewise, everything that I do is influenced by my experiences working with LGBTQ students. Working with this group of students has kept my eyes open and my senses aware to the needs of LGBTQ youth. Until our LGBTQ youth can be out and supported, there is incredible work to do. It is community relationships that make things like pop up pride possible. Community engagement at the regional and state level connects the work to the advocates on a larger level. For example, statewide LGBTQ organization representatives will visit university campuses and help issue a call to action, if a director is connected to those people and resources. These same relationships can be used to leverage policy changes, including fairness ordinances extending LGBTQ protections. As a director in a regional institution comprised primarily of student commuters, it was essential to engage in work that could provide additional protections for LGBTQ students in their hometown. As a person who serves in all of these roles, I see countless ways to connect LGBTQ students to community resources, internship and mentorship opportunities, and pride festival planning. As I conclude this phase of this study, and consider the additional stories I need to tell and the additional work I need to do as a social justice educator, criticisms remain. Pinar (2014), asks, “How is the present in the past, the past in the future, and the present in both” (p. 26). The efforts are circular and never-ending. Creating culture to change policy to provide visibility to

create a sense of belonging to ensure the LGBTQ community knows they are supported and belong. These circular efforts are interwoven with the power of student activists, the cost of continued budget cuts, and the ongoing efforts to infuse LGBTQ representation throughout campus life. Especially when working at a PWI, there is always room to be more intersectional in programming, services, and representation. Lack of resources create a lack of physical time, but time should be given to expand a network of support. There must be intentionality in order to best seize moments that can drive change.

Lasting Change I began this study by wondering if and how the office has contributed to the overall DEI mission of the institution. If inclusive excellence is a framework used to infuse DEI into institutional curriculum, the role of an LGBTQ office should be to contribute LGBTQ histories, movements, and representations throughout IE initiatives. As I reflect upon these experiences and this work, there are plenty of IE successes and failures to recognize, and plenty of additional moments to share. When an institution commits to IE as a DEI model, the message is a commitment to infusing diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice throughout all aspects of the official and unofficial curriculum of the institution. If university administrators are committed to IE as a framework, physical, written, and spoken effects would be felt on campus. A commitment to IE means making the hard decisions to refuse a NBFC entrance to a student union when it represents a source of hate, even if the general student population claims to not understand the problem. A commitment to IE is illustrated by the university vice president who created a scholarship fund for minoritized students who wanted to study abroad, and the commitment of a study abroad office to see value in an LGBTQ-themed study abroad course and to put the financial backing behind the program’s success. A commitment to IE is demonstrated by a colleague who had the funding to provide for a big-name speaker, and believed in a new colleague’s mission to enact policy change by creating visibility. A commitment to IE is felt by the number of students who report committing to the institution after a campus visit where they noticed rainbow flags and were met by orientation leaders who asked for pronouns in introductions. IE is written into policy, is spoken in all comments by university leadership, is visible in institutional actions, and is felt when walking across campus.

Reflecting upon this work, these movements and successes were a result of the power of student voice, the incredible insight and intuitiveness of LGBTQ student activists, and the importance of relationship and community building in order to enact positive change. Student feedback illustrate some of the ways an LGBTQ office contributes to a more inclusive campus community, Coming from a small town where I never felt safe to be open about who I am to where I am now has had a far greater impact than I thought possible. I began my time as a student by getting involved with the LGBTQ office. It was the first time in my life that I felt welcome and safe in talking about my sexual orientation. In the past three years, the office has helped me bloom into a leader in all of my organizations and supported my initiatives to push inclusivity in all sectors of student life. (Personal communication, June 12, 2019)

Lives are changed because of this work. LGBTQ advocacy work contributes to an institution’s DEI initiatives, even when DEI frameworks such as IE fail those of us engaging in the work. Diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts must identify and eradicate the ways in which institutional policies and financial decision making exploits the most marginalized communities. Coming into college, the very first thing I sought out was the LGBT office, quite literally. The idea was astounding to me—that the LGBT community had been included in the groups that need resources. Of course, I completely agree—over my three years I’ve relied heavily on the resources provided by the office, on campus and off. I rely on and learn from Bonnie, and working with the office has shot me through an unimaginable period of personal growth I couldn’t have foreseen on that very first day. (Personal communication, November 12, 2019)

In the last step of currere, the synthetical phase, Pinar (2014), asks, Are one’s interests biographically freeing, that is, do they permit, in fact encourage, movement? Do they point to increased conceptual sophistication and refinement, deeper knowledge and understanding, of both one’s chosen field of study and that field’s symbolic relation to one’s evolving biography? Do they move one to enter new, higher

levels of being? What conceptual gestalt is finally visible? That is, what is one’s point of view? (p. 27)

There is no doubt that my persistence is influenced by years of my own personal experiences with educators. The choir teacher who built me up, the track coach who believed in me and encouraged me, the first-year college writing instructor who called attention to my excessive use of the apostrophe, while also building me up as a writer, were all important in my journey. My mentors through the English Department, and my renewed connection to that work. Every single professor I had the opportunity to work with in my doctoral program. I’ve been privileged to learn from so many incredible educators along my journey and have aspired to be a positive influence in students’ lives as well. Part of this is my commitment to being OUT. Survivors of homophobia have an obligation to do their part in the fight toward LGBTQ equity. I am fueled by my experiences, in my efforts to remain a constant, trustworthy advocate for LGBTQ students. It is important to me that I embody what it looks like to be a successful, “out” queer woman as a representation for those who need it. I am open about my experiences with my students because I want them to see that it is possible to overcome adversity and live life happily and loudly as an LGBTQ person. LGBTQ directors, and other professionals who serve marginalized student populations, cannot be all things to all students, but we can work intentionally every day to employ principles of frameworks like IE. We can consider how we can infuse those principles into our own work. It is only when all people on campus are engaged in anti-racist, pro-immigrant, pro-LGBTQ work that the benefits of IE could become part of an institution’s fabric. It is only when an institution truly supports this work, through budgets, support staff, faculty lines, and student success and opportunities, that it becomes sustainable.

Appendix A: LGBTQ Inclusive Excellence Scorecard (Adapted from Williams)

IE Area Definition Sample IE Campus Pride LGBTQ Office IE Indicators Index Priorities Indicators Access & The compositional Number of Policy Inclusion: Policy Inclusion: Equity number & success students, faculty, - Non-discrimination - Non-discrimination levels of staff at the policy policy historically institution. - Inclusive benefits - Inclusive facilities underrepresented - Housing forms students, faculty, Number of Recruitment & - Name change procedure and staff in higher historically Retention: - Student ambassador education underrepresented -Self-identify on: program students in - admissions - Peer mentor program STEM application - Orientation - post-enrollment - Lavender Orientation forms - Lavender Graduation - student health - College Fairs intake - Alumni partnerships forms

Campus The development Sense of Institutional Support -Staff Climate of a psychological belonging. & Commitment: -Diverse trainings and behavioral -Institutionalized -Ally visibility climate supportive Attitudes toward office -LGBTQ representation of all students. members of -Trainings across campus diverse groups. -Visible network of -Trans inclusive health allies benefits Incidents of -LGBTQ questions -Inclusive policies harassment based on I.R. on race, Trans inclusive housing ethnicity, gender, Trans inclusive restrooms and sexual Housing Student Organizations orientation - LGBTQ inclusive programming LGBTQ representation - -NCAA review -Campus Climate Survey Campus Safety -Bias Response Team -Bias reporting -CCRT -Victim support -Officer and dispatcher -Officer trainings trainings

Diversity in Diversity content Courses related Academic Curricular the Formal in the courses, to intercultural, -LGBTQ course -Campus Pride/Office and programs, and international, and offerings Advisory Committee Informal experiences across multicultural -LGBTQ -LGBTQ Study Abroad, Curriculum the various topics Major/Minor transdisciplinary/embedded academic -LGBTQ resources, within existing courses programs and in Campus Centers libraries -Additional courses the social dedicated to - LGBTQ Studies major or dimensions of the exploring minor campus intercultural, - Curriculum mapping environment. international, or across campus. multicultural -LGBTQ topics workshops/presentations

Student Life Co-Curricular -Student -Student Organizations, Organizations academic and social - -Programming Events/Programming -Services -Visible LGBTQ -Leadership leadership -Funding

Student The acquisition of Greater cognitive Academic Life Measurable/Rankings Learning knowledge about and social -Campus Pride diverse groups and development -USA Today cultures derived from -Best Colleges experiences in diverse learning Student Life Hidden Curricula environments Campus Climate Null Curricula Enhanced sense of ethnic, racial, and cultural identity for all students

APPENDIX B – AN LGBTQ STUDY ABROAD EXPERIENCE

European Experiences of Exile, Resistance, and Inclusion

Study Abroad Experience in Amsterdam, Brussels, Brugge, and Paris

Monday, May 16 – Monday, May 30

Daily Itinerary

**Times subject to change**

**Please note all areas where you will need to purchase your own food are marked in bold lettering**

Tuesday, May 17 Arrive in Amsterdam Dutch Resistance Museum

Time Itinerary Notes Coach: 7:45a Arrival of flight UA070 from EWR to Doelen Coach Service by AMS 00 31 20 6530971 Upon our arrival, we will take ten minutes before going through immigration to freshen up in the airport restroom.

Coach and Assistant to meet group at 8:30a Amsterdam Schiphol for transfer to Max Max Brown Museum Square Hotel Brown Museum Square Hotel Jan Luijkenstraat 40-46 1071CR, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

9:15a Arrive at Max Brown Museum Square Hotel Guide:  Upon arrival, hopefully we are able to:  Eat something *******************************  Leave bags Tram to Hotel: 2:03 – 10 Tram 9:30a Meet in hotel lobby Verzetsmuseum, Plantage Kerklaan 61A, 1018CX Walk <750m, 10min> Guide will meet group for half day guided Amsterdam, Alexanderplein 12:00p walking tour. Guide will give us our travel -10 <5stops, 8 mins> to Amsterdam cards. Guide will walk us to the Dutch Spiegelgracht Resistance Museum Walk <450m, 6min> Arrive at hotel

2:00p Entrance to Dutch Resistance Museum

Meet in Museum lobby. Depart as a Free time: 3p-6p 3:00p group for Max Brown Museum Square Hotel via tram ******************************* 6:12 -2 Tram Check in to rooms. Lunch on own. Meet Walk <71m, 1min> 6:00p in hotel lobby. Depart for dinner via tram. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum -2 Centraal Station <5 stops, 8min> Depart Amsterdam, Spui (Nieuwezjds V.) Walk <400m, 5min> ******************************* 91

7:00p Dinner at De Nissen Restaurant, Rokin 95 ******************************* (Menu: Asst. smoked fish salad w/ 9:13p -5 Tram (13min) salmon, shrimp, crayfish, cucumber, Walk <350m, 4min> tomato, and ginger whisky mayo OR Amsterdam, Spui (Nieuwezjds V.) Spring chicken roasted fillets with paprika -5 Amstelveen Stadshart <5 stops, coulis, mixed veggies & potato 7min> pie. Strawberry bavarois flavored with Depart Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum basil and pink pepper, blackberry sauce & Walk <130m, 2min> peppermint cream) ******************************** * Dietary restrictions have been addressed and separate meal provided.

Depart for Max Brown Museum Square 9:00p Hotel Day ends

Wednesday, May 18 Amsterdam Anne Frank House; Students’ Choice

Time Itinerary Notes

9:00a Meet for breakfast. Day’s briefing

9:45a Depart for Anne Frank House ******************************* 9:51a -170 Tram (11min) Walk <72m, 1min> 10:00a Explore area around the Anne Frank Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum House -170 Amsterdam CS <4 stops, 8min> Depart Amsterdam, Westermarkt Walk <200m, 2min> 10:45a Meet at the front of the Anne Frank House *******************************

11:00 Entrance to Anne Frank House

1:00p Walk to Pink Point and Homomonument ******************************* 2:38p -170 Tram (11min) 2:30p Return to Max Brown Hotel via Tram Walk <120m, 2min> Amsterdam, Westermarkt -170 Uithoorn via Amstelveen <4 stops, 3:00p- Lunch and dinner on own. 8min> 8:00p Students’ Choice - Remember you MUST Depart Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum be with at least one other person from our Walk <110m, 1min> group AT ALL TIMES. Be inclusive with ******************************* your planning in case folks want to tag Options: along.  See list on FB group page for options.

8:00p- Meet in hotel lobby Discuss the day/share responses 9:30p Group reflection

Thursday, May 19 Amsterdam LGBTI National Archives; Prostitution Information Center; Canal Tour

Time Itinerary Notes

9:00a Meet for breakfast. Day’s briefing

10:00a Tram to Amsterdam ******************************* Centraal 10:01a -170 Tram (26 min) Walk <72m, 1min> Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum 10:30 Explore Centraal Station -170 Amsterdam CS <7 stops, 15min> area Depart Amsterdam, Westermarkt Walk <800m, 10min> ******************************* 11:45a Meet in front of Openbare Bibliotheek (Library)

12:00p LGBT National Archives of Meet with Archives Representative the Netherlands.

2:00p Lunch on the go (Centraal ******************************* Library Café) -19 minute walk Walk to Boekhandel ******************************* Vrolijk, Paleisstraat 135, 1012 ZL ******************************* -8 minute walk ******************************* 3:00 Walk to Prostitution Information Center

3:30 Prostitution Information Meet with Founder Center

5:00p- Explore the Red Light 5:45p District

5:45p Meet in front of The Oude The Oude Church is a 13th-century church that hosts Church, Oudekerksplein 23, religious and cultural activities, including concerts. 1012 GX *******************************

6:00 Travel by Tram to Blue 6:00p -170 Tram (19 min) Boat Company – Canal Tour

6:45p Canal boat ride Walk <550m, 7min> Amsterdam, Nieuwezijds Kolk -170 Uithoorn via Amstelveen <5 stops, 9min> Depart Amsterdam, Leidseplein Walk <260m, 3min> *******************************

8:00p Tram back to hotel. Directions will be provided after we decide, as a group, on a dinner location.

Friday, May 20 Amsterdam – Brussels Parliamentarium, European Union

Time Itinerary Notes

6:45a Meet in lobby NO LATER ******************************* THAN 6:45am. Plan to Bus ride is approximately 2h 45m dress nicely for this day as ******************************* 7:00a there will not be time to change. NO JEANS. Day’s briefing

Transportation to Brussels via motor coach (please note, the bus will not stop for restroom breaks). *Please use this time to

think through our visit with

the European Union. You will all need to be active participants in the discussion. Arrive at Marivaux Hotel, Boulevard Adolphe Maxlaan 10:00a 98-B-1000

Drop bags and immediately leave for the Parliamentarium, Rue de Treves, 1000 Bruxelles 10:30a ******************************* Entrance to Parliamentarium Train to Parliamentarium <19 min> Brussels 1:00p Walk <550m, 7min> to De Broukere - 5 <4 stops, 5min>

Depart at Maelbeek Walk <350m, 4min>

******************************* Lunch on own ***Please note it is at this point in which you will 3:00p- Explore European Quarter 5:00p likely see armed military guards. Do not approach or (Quartier Europeen) speak with these guards. This will be a common sight

throughout our time in Brussels (and likely, Paris).***

*******************************

5:00p - Arrive at the European Meet with Assistant Policy Officer 6:30p Union *You will be required to go through security screening (likely in the form of a metal detector and wand) and will be required to wear an identification badge. *******************************

European Union , Rue du Train to Marivaux Hotel <16 min> Luxembourg 46 Walk <400m, 4min> to Trone 6 Elisabeth <4 stops, 5 min> Return to hotel, via train Depart at Rogier Walk <260m, 3min> *******************************

You may choose to walk with the group and return 8:00p- Dinner on own on your own if you are comfortable, so long as you 10p are back at the hotel and ready to participate in group

reflection by 8:00pm.

Saturday, May 21 Brussels Students’ Choice

Time Itinerary Notes

9:00a Meet for breakfast Day’s briefing. Be ready to discuss how you intend to spend your day in Brussels.

10:00a- Student Choice. Remember you MUST be with Remember you will likely have 2:00p at least one other person from our group AT ALL to pay to use the restroom. Have TIMES. Be inclusive with your planning in case euros with you. folks want to tag along. Lunch on own

2:00p Check in with via Facebook message Be certain to connect to wifi. Most cafes will have wifi, you just need to ask for the password. Purchasing a water is fine.

2:00p- Student Choice 8:00p Dinner on own

8:00p Meet in hotel lobby

8:00p- 10:00p Group reflection

Sunday, May 22 Brussels – Brugge – Brussels Brugge

Time Itinerary Notes

7:30a Meet for breakfast Day’s briefing. Be ready to discuss how you intend to spend your day in Brugge.

******************************* 8:15a Depart for Brugges via train Directions provided after we receive our tickets. (9:04a departure) ******************************* **Times subject to change depending on the ticket times 1.9km, 23min we (approximately 1 mile) receive in Brussels.

Arrive in Brugge, 10:30a Brugge Railway Station, Stationsplein 5, 8000 Brugge Walk to Central Plaza

******************************* 11:00a- Student Choice Directions provided after we receive our tickets. 3:00p Lunch on own *******************************

3:30p Meet in Central Plaza Walk as a group to Brugge Railway Station, Stationsplein 5, 8000 Brugge

4:57p- Depart Brugge for Brussels 6:30p Arrive in Brussels. Walk to hotel. Dinner on own

8:00p- Meet in hotel lobby 10:00p Group reflection

Monday, May 23 Brussels ILGA, European Parliament

Time Itinerary Notes

8:30a Meet for breakfast. Day’s briefing – Come with questions/discussion Plan to dress nicely for this day points to share as we prepare for our meetings with as there will not be time to ILGA and EP change. NO JEANS. ******************************* 9:20a Train to ILGA 9:02-2 Train to ILGA <15 min> Walk <270m, 3min> to Rogier - 2 -6 <4 stops, 5min> Depart at Trone Walk <500m, 4min> *******************************

10:00a ILGA – Europe, Rue du Meet with ILGA Trone/Troonstraat 60, 1050 Senior Communications Officer 12:00p Brussels

Lunch on own 2:30p European Quarter (Quartier <650m, 8min> Europeen) 2:40p Meet to walk to European Parliament

3:00p European Parliament – we will Meet with Secretary Intergroup on LGBTI Rights

be required to go through

4:30p security. There will be armed ******************************* military personnel. 5:01 – 2 Train to Marivaux Hotel <17 min> You will need to wear a guest Walk <700m, 9min> to Trone past throughout our visit -2 Elisabeth <4 stops, 5 min> 5:00p- European Parliament Depart at Rogier 8:00p presentation and plenary visit Walk <260m, 3min> ******************************* 8:00p Return to Marivaux Hotel via train Students’ Choice Dinner on own 8:00p- 10:00p Meet in hotel lobby, Group Reflection

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Tuesday, May 24 Brussels - Paris Fiap tour, River cruise

Time Itinerary Notes

7:00a Meet in lobby for Day’s briefing breakfast ******************************* 8:00a Coach to pick up group for Bus ride is anywhere from 3 ½ hours – 5 hours, transport to Fiap Jean depending on route and traffic. Bus does not stop for Monnet Hotel in Paris restroom breaks. ******************************* Arrive at the Fiap Jean 12:30p Monnet Hotel, 30 Rue Assistant: D-Tours Cabanis -Assistant will meet us at the Fiap to hand out travel cards. ******************************* (Paris Visite Travel Card 1:38 – 6 Train to Bateaux Parisiens <33 min> 1:30p Zone 1-3, 6 days) Walk <550m, 6min> to Glaciere -Tour facility -6 Charles du Gaulle <11 stops, 13 min> Lunch on own (there is a Depart at Bir-Hakeim café inside the Fiap). Walk <1.0km, 12min> Arrive at Bateaux Parisiens Meet in hotel lobby. Travel ******************************* 2:30p via train to River Cruise Bateaux Parisien, Port De 4:00p La Bourdonnais ******************************* ** The entrance for the 5:43 – 6 Train to Glaciere <32 min> river cruise is very near the Walk <750m, 10min> to Bir-Hakeim 5:30p Eiffel -6 Nation <11 stops, 12 min>

Tower. Depart at Glaciere

Walk <550m, 7min>

River Cruise Arrive at Fiap Jean Monnet 6:30p *******************************

Walk to the Eiffel Tower

8:00p- Return to the Fiap via train 10:00p  If we have not yet been able to check in to our rooms, we will do this upon our return.

Meet for dinner, Reflection

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Wednesday, May 25 Paris Louvre, Arc du Triomphe

Time Itinerary Notes

8:00a Meet in lobby for breakfast Day’s briefing

9:00a Guide to meet group at hotel ******************************* Transportation information provided day of 10:30a Entrance to Louvre Museum ******************************* -This is a guided tour, but we hope to allow everyone the opportunity to Guide: explore on their own as well.

3:00p Meet (at location designated before entering the Louvre) ******************************* -Lunch on own (there is a café inside 5:43 – 6 Metro to Glaciere <32 min> the Louvre with a Walk <750m, 10min> to Bir-Hakeim beautiful balcony overlooking the -6 Nation <11 stops, 12 min> city. Near the Louvre are Depart at Glaciere numerous crepe shops, offering sweet Walk <550m, 7min> and savory crepes, Arrive at Fiap Jean Monnet including gf varieties) *******************************

4:00p Walk down Avenue Champs-Elysees to the Arc De Triomphe

5:30p Arrive at Arc De Triompe. ******************************* -Please note that the only way to get 5:43 – 6 Metro to Glaciere <34 min> to the top of the Arc is Walk <290m, 4min> to Charles de by walking up many (many, many) Gaulle Etoile stairs. It’s worth it for the -6 Nation <19 stops, 19 min> view you will have when we get to the Depart at Glaciere top. Walk <550m, 8min> Arrive at Fiap Jean Monnet 7:30p Return to Fiap via train for dinner. *******************************

8:00p- 10:00p Dinner and group reflection

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Thursday, May 26 Paris Eiffel Tower, LGBT Centre, Tour Les Marais

Time Itinerary Notes

7:30a Meet in lobby for breakfast Day’s briefing

8:30a Guide to meet group at hotel and take ******************************* metro to Eiffel Tower together Transportation information provided day of *******************************

10:30a Entrance to Eiffel Tower to top floor Guide: by lift

Lunch on own (there are many 12:00p affordable restaurants and street food options near the Eiffel Tower) ******************************* Transportation information provided day of 1:00p Meet at location TBD to travel as a ******************************* group to Les Marais

1:30p- Students’ Choice 5:30p -Les Marais is the LGBTQ neighborhood. There are many shops, cat cafes, restaurants, and museums. Meet with LGBT Centre Representative Meet in front of Centre LGBT Paris, 5:45p 63 rue Beaubourg - Additional directions for finding ******************************* the Centre will be provided 7:43 – RER B Metro to Denfert- day of. Rouchereau <28 min> Walk <650m, 8min> to Chatelet – Les Halles 6:00p LGBT Centre Paris -RER B Cité Universitaire <4 stops, 7 min> Depart at Denfert-Rouchereau 7:30p Return to Fiap for dinner Walk <700m, 8min>

Arrive at Fiap Jean Monnet

******************************* 8:00p- Dinner and group reflection 10:00p

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Friday, May 27 Paris Deportation Memorial, Shoah Memorial(TBD)

Time Itinerary Notes

8:30a Meet in lobby for breakfast Day’s briefing

10:00a Travel to Deportation Memorial as a ******************************* group 10:12 – RER B Metro to Saint-Michel, -The Deportation Memorial is Notre Dame <25 min> directly behind Notre Dame. Walk <700m, 10min> to Denfert- Rouchereau -RER B Gare du Nord <3 stops, 5 min> 10:30a Visit Deportation Memorial Depart at Saint-Michel – Notre Dame Walk <600m, 8min> Arrive at Memorial des Martyrs de la 12:00p Students’ Choice Deportation 7:00p **Remember, you must travel in ******************************* groups of two or more AT ALL TIMES. Lunch on own (there are many affordable restaurants and street food options near the Eiffel Tower)

7:00p Meet in hotel lobby for dinner

7:00p- Dinner and group reflect 9:00p

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Saturday, May 28 Paris Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Students’ Choice, Group dinner at Le Café du Commerce

Time Itinerary Notes

8:30a Meet in lobby for breakfast Day’s briefing

10:00a Travel to Pere Lachaise Cemetery via ******************************* Metro as a group 10:14 – Denfert-Rochereau Metro to -The Deportation Memorial is Gambetta <47 min> directly behind Notre Dame. Walk <800m, 10min> to Denfert- Rouchereau -4 Metro Porte de Clignancourt 11:00a - Explore Pere Lachaise Cemetery in <13 stops, 15 min> 1:00p small groups Depart at Reaumur-Sebastopol Go to Reaumur-Sebastopol Walk 1:15p Meet at TBD location Reaumur-Sebastopol -3 Metro Gallieni <7 stops, 8 min> Depart at Gambetta 1:30p- Students’ Choice**Remember, you Walk <250m, 3min> 5:30p must travel in groups of two or more ******************************* AT ALL TIMES. Menu: 3 course dinner including a glass of wine 6:00p Meet in front of Le Café du Salade de chevre chaud aux fruits secs Commerce, 51 rue du Commerce Supreme de volaille fermiere crème (28min from the Fiap) forestiere Dinner and group reflection Pot de crème au chocolate maison Café

6:15p - Students’ Choice **Remember, you 8:30p must travel in groups of two or more AT ALL TIMES.

8:30p - Check in

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Sunday, May 29 Paris Students’ Choice Time Itinerary Notes

9:00a Meet for breakfast Day’s briefing. Be ready to discuss how you intend to spend your day in Paris.

2:00p Check in with Bonnie via Facebook message Be certain to connect to wifi. Most cafes will have wifi, you just need to ask for the password. Purchasing a water is fine.

2:00p- Student Choice 8:00p

8:00p Meet in hotel lobby

8:00p- Group reflection 10:00p

10:00p Pack for home

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Monday, May 30 Travel Home

Time Itinerary Notes Coach: 6:45a Meet in hotel lobby packed, with your luggage, and ready to leave Clamart Cars Coach to meet group at Fiap for transfer from hotel to CDG airport for 7:00a flight UA 986 at 11:15a

Flight details:

Depart Paris on United Airlines flight 986 at 11:15am and arrive in Chicago at 1:15pm -We will have to go through customs when we arrive in Chicago.

Depart Chicago on United Airlines flight 4284 at 5:59pm and arrive in Cincinnati at 8:17pm on Monday, May 30.

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