CIIS Hosts Conference on LGBTQ

CIIS recently hosted "Expanding the Circle: Creating an Inclusive Environment in Higher Education for LGBTQ Students and Studies," a groundbreaking conference for higher education on a whole range of issues affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer students and studies.

"Expanding the Circle," which took place February 25-28 at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco, drew participants from over 150 institutions, from community colleges to major research universities. Attendees came from all over the English-speaking world, including Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada, as well as every region of the U.S.
The conference aimed to forge connections across academic disciplines and LGBTQ subfields, and between academic and student affairs. The attendees included faculty members, university chaplains, administrators, student life professionals, specialists in curriculum and faculty development, social justice advocates, and graduate students.
"There are a number of critical questions relating to LGBTQ students and studies that are not being addressed," says CIIS President Joseph Subbiondo. "We created a forum to advance the conversation among members of the LGBTQ community and allies serving higher education."
Conference Coordinator Dustin Smith notes that in higher education, LGBTQ students and studies are often marginalized. "By making LGBTQ issues and concerns the central focus, we were able to provide a space for a community to flourish," he says.
"Given the state of LGBTQ studies, many professionals are working in isolation or with severely limited funds," Smith says. "The more networking and community building opportunities we provide them, the better they will be able to serve students on their campuses."
The conference featured workshops and discussion sessions dealing with leading-edge subjects such as the intersection of the LGBTQ community and campus religious organizations. Scotty McLennan, dean for Religious Life at Stanford University, maintained in his plenary talk that campus religious organizations should be viewed as allies, rather than as obstacles, in working to make progress on LGBTQ issues on college campuses.
Another major theme of the conference was transgender and gender issues. Pauline Park, chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), led a plenary session focusing on possible ways of transgendering higher education through the establishment of infrastructure and through a queering of curricula and faculty.
Other renowned figures who presented at the conference included Lee Knefelkamp and Sharon Marcus of Columbia University, Susan Stryker of Indiana University, Steven Tierney of CIIS, John Hawley of Santa Clara University, Kavita Ramdas of the Global Fund for Women, and poets Judy Grahn and Jewelle Gomez.
According to Karim Baer, director of CIIS Public Programs, which organized the conference, one critical outcome was the creation of an "intentional community" spanning different generations. "The intergenerational component of this conference is crucial. As educators and administrators who have been pushing from within the academy retire, we'll need to keep the momentum."
To that end, "Expanding the Circle" will be held again in March 2011. "There is a national mandate to do it now," Dustin Smith says. "The response has been overwhelming."