Print This Post Print This Post

Oct

2

How gay is OSU? Ask them to take Campus Climate Index survey


From the incomparable C-Notes:

Shane Windmeyer runs Campus Pride , a national gay-rights organization that aims to make college kosher for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. He’s also written five books, including The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students , published last year. It ranks the nation’s top 100 LGBT-friendly schools based on interviews of more than 5,000 students and 500 faculty and staff. Windmeyer gathered opinions on student perspectives, campus events, housing and support resources, then factored them all into a “Gay-Point Average” for each school. We did okay, too: Ohio State and Oberlin College cracked the top twenty.

But now, there’s the Campus Climate Index and OSU hasn’t taken that yet:

This summer, Campus Pride launched the “Campus Climate Index”, a survey school officials can use to compare themselves. The setup’s a bit different – rather than reading polls of students or faculty, officials themselves have to answer questions about their “institutional commitment,” safety, and health. But they also get a separate “Gay-Point Average,” which prospective LBGT students can dissect in detail as they decide where to apply.

Though we’ve got two of the country’s most gay-friendly universities, neither Ohio State nor Oberlin have checked in. Neither have most of the others – to date, only six of the 108 other colleges and universities in Ohio have finished the survey. Ohio University posted the highest score – 4.5 on a five-point scale. Baldwin-Wallace and Case Western each topped 3.0, with the University of Cincinnati just behind at 2.5. Youngstown State and, oddly, the Columbus College of Art and Design (1.5 each) — well, they’ve got some work to do.

With Georgetown being a 70% Catholic university, I wouldn’t expect my alma mater to do so well, but then, you just never know.

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:31 pm October 2nd, 2007 in Civil Rights, Education, Ohio 

Comments

Leave a Reply




"));