Survey gives MU 3 out of 5 stars in LGBTQ-friendliness

Student life and support and institutional commitment were MU's highest-rated areas.

By Allison Prang

Published Aug. 17, 2010

A nationwide survey ranking colleges’ friendliness toward the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer and Questioning community gave MU three out of five stars last week.

LGBTQ Resource Center Coordinator Ryan Black said he feels MU’s ratings are “for the most part, accurate.” Black said it is up to colleges to take the initiative to answer the survey questions and then each school is ranked out of five stars in each category.

The goal of the Campus Pride organization that heads campusclimateindex.org is to foster programs and resources to support LGBTQ college students across the country, according to its website, campuspride.org. Campus Pride did not return requests for comment about MU’s rankings.

Black said MU is moving up on the scale, having been ranked at two and a half stars in 2007. He also said since he submitted answers to the survey questions this past January, improvements have been made to MU’s campus that would have changed some of the information.

Although MU has climbed in rankings, Black said there is still work to be done on campus to further make MU LGBTQ-friendly. Black said although LGBTQ students are accepted with “verbiage” and from faculty and campus resources, there is more to be done with formally being LGBTQ-friendly.

Black also said he does not feel MU’s ratings in specific areas will give the university a negative image.

“I think there were positive and negative ratings pointed out,” Black said. “Our weakest areas were policy and safety.”

Out of five stars, Campusclimateindex.org gave MU one and a half stars for policy inclusion and residential life, two stars for campus safety, two and a half stars for recruitment and retention efforts and academic life and four stars for counseling and health. MU received a five-star rating for student life and support and institutional commitment.

Two other areas in the survey were sexual orientation and gender identity and expression, for which MU received three and a half and one and a half stars respectively. Black said MU lacks in the inclusion of sexual identity.

MU Police Department Captain Brian Weimer said no matter how a student is defined by race or sexual orientation, hate crimes in every situation are handled the same.

“Our job is to get the facts and get them assistance,” Weimer said.