FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Press Contact: Campus Pride
Phone: (704) 277-6710
Email: info@campuspride.org
Finding Safe Spaces: Colleges vie for LGBT students at Boston Campus Pride College Fair
LGBT-Friendly College Fair to be held Nov. 6, with workshops and special guest, openly gay University of Maine-Farmington president Theo Kalikow
(BOSTON, MA) – Nearly three dozen colleges and universities from across the nation will join Campus Pride, the nation’s leading non-profit working to create safer, more LGBT-inclusive colleges and build future LGBT and ally leaders, for its last Fall 2010 LGBT-Friendly College Fair on Nov. 6, 1:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m., City Year Boston’s Headquarters, 287 Columbus Avenue, Boston, MA. The event, free to current and prospective college students, will include educational workshops, college presentations and speakers.
The event, the fourth in the program’s five-stop 2010-11 tour and is being planned in partnership with The Boston Alliance of GLBT Youth (BAGLY) and Friends of GLBT Youth, Inc. The fair brings together colleges and universities who seek to recruit talented and intelligent LGBT and ally students to their campuses.
“Around the nation, colleges and universities are learning the importance of offering safe learning and living environments on their campuses,” says Shane Windmeyer, executive director and founder of Campus Pride. “Efforts to increase safety, inclusion and LGBT student enrollment are natural and welcome reactions to the news of several gay youth suicides this fall. Colleges are finally realizing they must do more to create truly equitable spaces for all students.”
Among the schools participating: Bennington College, Bentley University, Berklee College of Music, Binghamton University, Brandeis University, Bridgewater State University, Bucknell University, Carleton College, Clark University, Colby-Sawyer College, Columbia College Chicago, Dartmouth College, Emory University, Eugene Lang College, Ithaca College, Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis, Marlboro College, Mount Holyoke College, Penn State University, Richmond, the American International University in London, Salem State University, Syracuse University, The Sage Colleges, Trinity College, Tufts University, Union College, University of Maine, University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, University of Southern Maine, University of Vermont, University of Maine Farmington and Vanderbilt University. Colleges and universities can still register for the event. For more information and to register, visit www.CampusClimateIndex.org/events.
Organizations participating include EqualApp, Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, Point Foundation and Trevor Project. Speakers at the event include Campus Pride executive director Shane Windmeyer and University of Maine-Farmington president Theo Kalikow, one of only 25 openly gay college or university presidents in the nation.
This September, Campus Pride’s Q Research Institute for Higher Education released its 2010 State of Higher Education for LGBT People. The landmark study of 6,000 college students, faculty and staff showed a significant number of LGBT students still face campus harassment and discrimination. The report recommends better, more LGBT-inclusive campus policies, as well as comprehensive reviews of university practices and policy enforcement.
“The state of education for LGBT people can be made better, and many schools across the country are working to make it so,” says Windmeyer. “In particular, the schools at our Boston fair are among those who are taking concrete steps toward safer, more inclusive campuses for LGBT students, faculty and staff.”
For more details concerning the 2010 State of Higher Education, visit www.campuspride.org/research.
For more information on the New York fair, other events, the LGBT-Friendly Campus Climate Index and more, visit www.CampusClimateIndex.org or www.CampusPride.org.
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