Just seven months ago, Cal State Long Beach (CSULB) sat low on what is called the Campus Pride Index (CPI), a measurement conducted by nonprofit Campus Pride that measures an individual campus’s welcoming of and respect toward LGBTQ life and culture.
Out of a 5-star ranking, CSULB has never reached above 2.5 stars since the CPI’s inception in 2001. After some diligent work—including updating the survey responses as well as creating the Committee on LGBTQ Campus Climate—the campus now stands at 4 stars.
“While many of new developments were institutionalized in the past year, they have been in the works,” said Dina Perrone, a member of the LGBTQ committee and an assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice. “In fact, CSULB’s score would have been much higher last year, but the survey responses hadn’t been updated since the 2010-11 academic year. With the help of Larisa Hamada, the Director of Equity and Diversity, and the campus community, CSULB’s score now truly reflects the current LGBT-friendly campus that we have.”
CSULB received perfect scores for its LGBT academic life, such as offering courses or majors/minors that are queer-specific (the campus announced its queer studies minor in 2012); LGBT student life, such as offering LGBT-specific events and activities; and campus safety, such as having procedural standards for LGBT-related bias and hate crimes.
Falling shortly behind with a less-than-perfect score is the campus’s access to counseling and health and LGBT policy inclusion, such as prohibiting discrimination and offering same-sex couple benefits.
Strangely, the CPI’s report card for CSULB lists the campus as having no gender-neutral or single-occupancy restrooms despite the campus’s direct effort last year that added 11 gender-neutral restrooms to the campus. Even more, come Fall 2014, gender-neutral housing will be available to students through the campus’s Housing and Residential Life Office.
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