Seeking a college - avoid these

[Rand]

Two Texas universities again worst for gays
Baylor drops in ranking, Texas A&M holds same spot on mostly-student survey


By ERIC ERVIN
Friday, August 25, 2006


For another consecutive year, two Texas schools have made the list of the top 20 worst colleges for gay students, both placing in the top 10.

According to The Princeton Review, Baylor University and Texas A&M University-College Station ranked No. 6 and No. 7 respectively on the list of the top 20 schools where an “Alternative Lifestyle is not an Alternative.” The list is included in the recently released 2007 edition of the book “The Best 361 Colleges.”

This year’s ranking shows a three-point drop for Baylor, which ranked No. 3 in the 2006 edition. Texas A&M holds the same spot—No. 7—as in last year’s ranking.

Sixty of the 62 rankings represent the voice of 115,000 students attending 361 schools. Princeton Review officials said an average of 300 students at each school answered an 80-question survey about their school’s academics, administration, campus life, student body and other topics.

“We consider these colleges the best in the nation academically,” Robert ******, author of the rankings book, said in a press release. “But the real challenge for applicants and parents is finding the college that’s best for them. That’s why our profiles and unique ranking lists report in depth what the colleges’ customers—the students themselves—tell us about their schools and their experiences at them.”

Officials said 95 percent of the surveys were submitted by students via online and seven percent filled out in person. The school rankings for the categories “Best Academics” and “Toughest to Get Into” are compiled using institutional data, said Princeton Review officials.


Anti-gay history

The book doesn’t seem to carry much significance with officials at Baylor, which is located in Waco. They declined to comment on the school’s ranking.

“These are student rankings based on unscientific data, so it’s not really appropriate for us to respond,” Lori Scott Fogleman, director of media relations for the 14,000-student Baptist university, said in a prepared statement.

Baylor has received adequate press about its policies on homosexuality.

In 2005, officials pulled about 500 coffee cups from a campus Starbucks because they featured a quote from gay author Armistead Maupin. The quote from the famous author reads in part: “My only regret being gay is that I repressed it for so long.”

During the same year, Tim Smith, a member of the university’s Hankamer School of Business Advisory Board, was removed from his post when school officials discovered he was gay.

The previous year, former gay Baylor student Matt Bass was stripped of his seminary scholarship after school officials discovered his sexual orientation.

Baylor does not have an official gay student organization, but students have formed Baylor Freedom, a group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students.


‘Most welcoming university’

Officials at Texas A&M view the ranking as the thoughts of only a select few, and said the majority of opinions differ.

“Everyone has their own opinion,” said Sherylon J. Carroll, associate vice president of communications. “We believe that we are the most welcoming university in the country. We are a family.”

Texas A&M has a university-recognized gay student group called Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Aggies. Each year the school’s Women’s & Gender Equity Resource Center sponsors Coming Out Week.

The school’s nondiscrimination policy “encourages a climate that values and nurtures collegiality, diversity, pluralism and the uniqueness of the individual within our state, nation and world.”

However, the university does not offer domestic parent benefits to employees.


Other rankings

Others on the list of worst colleges for gay students include University of Notre Dame (1), Hampden-Sydney College (2), Brigham Young University (3), Wheaton College (4), College of the Holy Cross (5), Grove City College (6), University of Tennessee-Knoxville (9), Samford University (10), Seton Hall University (11), Valparaiso University (12), Pepperdine University (13), Washington and Lee University (14), Miami University (15), Trinity College (16), North Carolina State University (17), University of Utah (18), Calvin College (19) and Providence College.

According to The Princeton Review, the top 20 “Gay Community Accepted” schools are New York University (1), Eugene Lang College/New School University (2), New College of Florida (3), Macalester College (4), College of the Atlantic (5), Simon’s Rock College of Bard (6), Wellesley College (7), Mount Holyoke College (8), Bryn Mawr College (9), Bennington College (10), Emerson College (11), Lawrence University (12), Harvey Mudd College (13), Grinnell College (14), Smith College (15), Wesleyan University (16), Swarthmore College (17), Hampshire College (18), Vassar College (19) and Reed College (20).

 

[slobone]

According to The Princeton Review, the top 20 “Gay Community Accepted” schools are New York University (1), Eugene Lang College/New School University (2), New College of Florida (3), Macalester College (4), College of the Atlantic (5), Simon’s Rock College of Bard (6), Wellesley College (7), Mount Holyoke College (8), Bryn Mawr College (9), Bennington College (10), Emerson College (11), Lawrence University (12), Harvey Mudd College (13), Grinnell College (14), Smith College (15), Wesleyan University (16), Swarthmore College (17), Hampshire College (18), Vassar College (19) and Reed College (20).

What, no California schools? Maybe they're so far past "acceptance" they don't even bother mentioning it.

 

[drhladnjak]

FWIW, Harvey Mudd is in California. Virtually all of the schools listed under "Gay Community Accepted" are small liberal arts colleges though, which probably says something about the more personal nature of such schools.

 

[justsimon]

A few of them are women's colleges also.

 

[slobone]

FWIW, Harvey Mudd is in California. Virtually all of the schools listed under "Gay Community Accepted" are small liberal arts colleges though, which probably says something about the more personal nature of such schools.

Oops, I missed that one. Had a feeling I was overlooking one.

But really, is a gay person going to feel that much more at home at Harvey Mudd than at, say, UC Santa Cruz, or UC Berkeley, or just about anywhere in the Bay Area or LA?

I think it comes down to whether you prefer the "nurturing, sheltered" environment of a small college or the excitement and opportunities of a major university.

If I was just starting to explore my sexuality, I'd much rather be in a place where I can maintain a modicum of anonymity, so the whole frigging college doesn't know who I had sex with last night.

Also, this list is only drawn from the top 300 or so colleges. No doubt there are lesser-known schools that are even more gay-friendly. Maybe schools like California College of Arts & Crafts in Oakland?

A few of them are women's colleges also.

Formerly women's colleges, I believe. I think they're all co-ed now. I know Vassar is.

 

[ahotjock71]

Auburn University - Auburn, Alabama = gay friendly!

I was one of the founding members of AGLA - the Auburn Gay & Lesbian Alliance.

http://www.auburn.edu

WAR DAMN EAGLE!

 

[drhladnjak]

Oops, I missed that one. Had a feeling I was overlooking one.

But really, is a gay person going to feel that much more at home at Harvey Mudd than at, say, UC Santa Cruz, or UC Berkeley, or just about anywhere in the Bay Area or LA?

I agree the list is somewhat suspect because it's based entirely on student opinion, without regard to other factors. It doesn't necessarily differentiate between a 98% positive response at a liberal arts college and 75% positive response at a large public university. I'd venture that at a small LAC, students are more likely to know about everything that's going on on-campus including how GLBT people are treated than at a large public university where most (straight) students have little idea of what it's like to be GLBT on their campus.

Then again, what do I know? I was deeply closeted for the years I spent at UC Berkeley not because it wasn't an accepting place but because I had a lot to work through internally to come out to myself. In certain ways, the visibility of a gay student community kept me in the closet. I interacted with gay people every day, but it only made me feel more like I couldn't possibly be gay because I wasn't like them.

 

[drhladnjak]

I went to UNC and while it's a fairly accepting place, it's nowhere near the top 20 of such a list. As institutionally liberal as it may be, large portions of the student body can be socially very conservative.

I think it was last year that a gay student got jumped by some guys. They beat him up, called him 'fag', etc. Even though it happened on Saturday night on the intersection of Franklin and Columbia (the major intersection of town for those not familiar), nobody ever came forward to say that they had even seen the fight! On the positive side, the campus community was fairly outraged and even those who weren't outraged thought it was generally a bad thing that reflected poorly on the town and university.

 

[iflookscouldkill]

Brigham Young University LOL we know we're not wanted there

 

[drhladnjak]

OK, I guess I'm sort of hijacking this thread, but the main content seems to have dried up anyways.

I agree that it is a rather open campus, especially for that quadrant of the country. You could certainly do a whole heck of a lot worse (NC State made the worst 20 list), but I stand by my earlier statements.

For starters, my advisor was very socially conservative. Right after I came out to my parents while I was dealing with the ensuing drama, my advisor dropped a huge deadline on me. When I didn't meet it, we had a talk about it and she could tell something was preoccupying me. I had to flat out tell her that it was a personal issue I didn't feel comfortable telling her about. Only a month earlier, I had heard about how she didn't feel that it was right for women and men to live in a shared house (with individual rooms with locks on the doors) together. There were many faculty members who were very religious. I couldn't really guage how liberal they might be on social issues, but the visible expressions of Christianity (on their official personal webpages for example) were enough to make me feel uncomfortable with them.

There were other things too that weren't strictly negative, but made things more awkward. For example, I was the only (out of 150) openly gay grad student in my department. While I wasn't out to the faculty I was working with, the grad students were very close knit and most all of them knew I was gay (and it wasn't a problem).

The biggest problem with being gay at UNC in my opinion is not so much the university or the campus, but rather the surrounding area. The Triangle is a tolerant place, but tolerant is not the same as supportive. Moreover, there are very few social outlets to meet other gay people. There are 3 bars in Raleigh, a square dance club, a gay men's chorus and that's about it. If you have a partner and live in a place like Durham, Carrboro or Chapel Hill, it's really not a bad life at all. Unfortunately, I found it exceedingly lonely to be single and gay there.

 

[drhladnjak]

I lived in Chapel Hill until December of last year. As far as I know, there are no gay bars there and just the three others in Raleigh (Flex, Capitol Coral and Legends). There are some mixed places around like Ringside in Durham though. I'm actually going back on a work-related trip for a few days in less than a month. I'd be curious to check out any new places you or your friend might know about. Feel free to PM me (or heck, post here) about any new places worth checking out.

I may have met your friend before even. I had a roommate in that same program and there are definitely some gay boys around. There are plenty of gay students on campus, just not in my department (Computer Science)--or at least they're just not out. I was involved with the gay student group on campus, but it's almost entirely filled with undergraduate drama queens. A lot of cool people visit once but then realize how much bullshit goes on and promptly stop attending meetings and events.

I didn't have a bad experience at UNC on the whole. I just thought it left a lot to be desired on the gay social front. I'd still say it's one of the best places in the South to be gay and out.