UPenn Has Roughly 1 LGBT Student Group for Every LGBT Student
The University of Pennsylvania, which just came out as a university actively seeking queer undergrads, must have the most cross-sections of gay student groups we’ve ever seen: Jewish Bisexuals, Gays and Lesbians; Queer Christian Fellowship; Penn’s Athletes and Allies Tackling Homophobia; Queer People of Color; Queer Student Alliance; Queer Undergraduates in Engineering, Science and Technology; and Wharton Alliance. Oh, and we just found this one: School of Medicine Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender People in Medicine Plus (LGBTPM +) Faculty-Staff. [NorthJersey.com]
It’s nice to see all these different groups.
At University of Hawaii Manoa, we only have an LBGT center and this thing called Coffee Hour where LGBT students come together in a room on Wednesdays and play get-to-know-each-other-games and talk about student life and non-profit events. Sometime I feel it’s more a place to hook up than anything but that’s ok I guess if that’s your intention. But having many groups like @ UPenn sounds awesome.
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That’s awesome that they have so many groups. I wonder how popular they are.
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We have 9 undergraduate organizations, and 24 total run through the Penn LGBT Center. Thanks for the shout-out! This semester we were able to start LGBT outreach in admissions, host the first ever Ivy League LGBTQA student conference, and get full triadic trans healthcare included in the student and faculty/staff insurance plans.
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@Danika the Lesbrarian: As a work-study student at Penn’s LGBT Center (one of the only free-standing LGBT Center structures on any campus in the U.S.), I can tell you that the groups are wildly popular. Many of the groups meet regularly at the Center and an incredible number of students turn out for these meetings. It’s really wonderful.
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I really don’t like the use of the word queer to refer to our communtiy, it means weird, strange, not normal. Gay is better because even though it is often used as a synonym for crap at least it’s roots are pure since it meant happy and more and more people are proud and happy to be gay.