When Ryan Prendergast returned to his room on the third day of his freshman year, he wasn’t expecting to see his roommate’s side of the room completely bare.
Even more shocking to him was the fact that his roommate moved out because Prendergast was gay.
“His mom and aunt came into the room and told me they were sorry it had to happen,” Prendergast said. “They never explained why. I found out later that his father had called the school and complained because he didn’t want his son to live with a gay kid.”
Prendergast, a freshman in the School of International Service, said he was surprised because of AU’s reputation as an LGBT-friendly university.
“For that to happen at AU... I was taken aback,” he said. “I could get mad, but where would that get me?”
Prendergast said he still believes the AU community is welcoming of LGBT students, and was impressed by the programs offered by AU’s GLBTA Resource Center.
He is one of many LGBT students attending AU while the University works to improve their outreach to the LGBT community.
AU was the only school in the D.C. area to receive a perfect score of five out of five stars on Campus Pride’s national LGBT-Friendly Index this August, The Eagle previously reported. This index measures the quality of life for LGBT students.
George Washington University and University of Maryland received 4.5 stars.
Matthew Bruno, the program director of the GLBTA Resource Center, said AU’s high LGBT-friendly campus rating is frequently brought up in the conversations he has with prospective students during preview days and summer orientation.
“Every single summer, multiple students come to the center and mention the campus climate index that they’ve looked at and they’re excited about it,” he said. “The index helps students to choose to attend school at American.”
The LGBT-Friendly Campus Climate Index was created in 2001 by the LGBT nonprofit Campus Pride to improve college environments for LGBT students. The index assesses LGBT-friendly policies, programs and practices for more than 300 colleges in the nation.
AU received perfect scores in all categories except for Housing and Residence Life and Campus Safety. The campus earned 4.5 and 3.5 stars in those categories because of AU’s perceived lack of open-gender housing options and because AU campus police are not required to receive training on sexual orientation issues.
“We’ll talk to Public Safety to see if what they’re learning through the Metropolitan Police is what they want, or if they’d prefer something from the resource center,” Bruno said.
Bruno said AU’s GLBTA Resource Center is in the process of inquiring with Campus Pride to determine if outside training for Public Safety officers is acceptable.
To improve the 4.5 stars rating for Housing and Residence Life on the index, the center has been working closely with Student Government to develop open-gender housing options, Bruno said. Gender-neutral housing accommodates all sexualities and will be available in Nebraska, Centennial and Roper Halls and the McDowell Hall suites in fall 2012.
Bruno said the GLBTA Resource Center ensures campus policies are inclusive of LGBT students to maintain a friendly environment.
“We are working to make campus even safer and more welcome,” he said. “We want to go above and beyond making sure that people are getting the education that they want.”
The center has expanded its Safe Space program to include three workshops focusing on ally-development, including a Safe-Space Sticker workshop, a new Trans 101 program and a new Safe Space 2.0 program.
The workshops focus on specific topics such as combating homophobia and sexism on campus. Attendees can learn strategies and techniques to counteract negativity, Bruno said.
Carl Menninger, director of theatre and musical theatre at AU, said he believes AU has an LGBT-friendly campus. Yet Menninger said young gay people struggle even in environments that appear accepting.
“We can often be lulled into the naive belief that educated, progressive communities have moved past problems of bigotry and bias,” he said.
Menninger and his students are putting on the musical “Bare: A Pop Opera,” at 8 p.m. on March 2 and 3 in Katzen Studio Theater, to address the issues that young LGBT students face.
The “Bare” outreach team is collaborating with LGBT-ally groups to raise awareness and demonstrate support for young people who feel victimized because of their sexual identity.
SIS freshman Taylor Moore, who is openly lesbian, said she had an easy transition coming to AU.
“I knew I wanted to come to college being really open about it, and I’ve had no issues,” Moore said.
David Ross, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, came out as bisexual in high school. He said he has never heard or seen anything particularly hateful toward LGBT students.
“I’ve definitely heard some stereotypes on campus, but I don’t take them seriously,” he said. “I know there’s a fraternity on campus that doesn’t like to have gay people at their parties, but the thing is, the majority of people on campus make fun of those people.”
Ross said that, once he came out, people treated him differently but not necessarily in a bad way.
“I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘Dude! You should be my new gay best friend!’ But I don’t know anything about fashion,” Ross said.
