LGBT Center presence is not as common at other universities as it is at Ohio University

When Anna Neawedde had a conversation with a co-worker from her hometown about LGBTQ education, Neawedde was surprised when her co-worker didn’t understand what there was to learn.

Neawedde, a senior in specialized studies with an emphasis on gender, communication and management, said she is fascinated by different identities and how they play into people’s lives.

Thanks to the LGBT Center at Ohio University, students have a unique opportunity to learn about the LGBTQ community and the issues it faces because of the center’s reach, she said.

Because the OU LGBT Center falls under Academic Affairs instead of Student Affairs, it is able to work with faculty and staff to incorporate curriculum in the classroom.

“Other schools, from what I’ve seen, may do something similar, but because they’re under the student affairs umbrella, academic work isn’t necessarily their primary focus,” delfin bautista, director of the LGBT Center, said.

Bowling Green State University and Kent State University have LGBT centers, Miami University and the University of Toledo have their university’s equivalent of a center, and the University of Akron does not have one.

OU’s LGBT Center, which opened about 17 years ago, is the first center of its kind at a university in Ohio.

Although other universities have centers and resources for LGBTQ students, those resources may not be as visible on campus because of how the university is set up, bautista, who uses they/them pronouns and the lowercase spelling of their name, said.

Jenna Skladany, a sophomore studying recreation, park and tourism management at Kent State University, said she knows Kent State has an LGBT center but does not know many details about it.

Brayden Bennell, a sophomore studying finance at Miami University, said there is no specific LGBT center on campus. Instead, the LGBT division falls under the Office for Diversity Affairs.

“I would say I'm quite involved in and around Miami, and overall, I feel that the center is not utilizing all of its resources as much as it should, and I would think other students could attest to that as well,” Bennell said in an email.

Neawedde, LGBTQA Affairs Commissioner for Student Senate, said OU’s LGBT Center has a strong presence on campus.

“The LGBT Center is even (more) unique than other offices on campus in regards to how they really go about making it feel like a community,” Neawedde said.

Collaboration with the Women’s Center and the Multicultural Center also makes the LGBT Center unique, bautista said. At most universities, all of those offices are grouped together to form a diversity office. Since each center functions as its own unit at OU, however, the centers are able to collaborate across different issues.

Another key part of the LGBT Center’s involvement on campus is the support it receives from the university, bautista said.

“We now have the LGBT studies certificate. We have gender neutral housing. We have the LGBT living experience,” bautista said. “A lot of these initiatives, when proposed, didn’t receive a lot of resistance.”

Even though other universities have started adopting some of those policies, many still look to OU as a leader for university LGBT centers, bautista said.

“It’s been cool that schools outside of Ohio have reached out to us in many different ways for guidance or suggestions,” bautista said. “(Gender-neutral) housing, as well as the name and pronoun policy, have generated a lot of phone calls (from other schools).”

@maddiecapron

mc055914@ohio.edu