It’s your first day of classes and whether you’re a boy or girl, freshman or senior, you’re excited and anxious to make new friends and see your old ones. You walk around campus looking through the crowds of people for someone you know, and when you see a friend of yours, your shoulders relax and you feel comfort and have a sense of belonging.
But what if on campus, you receive glares, you’re looked up and down, and were called disrespectful names. To some particular students, this sadly is a reality. A reality that maybe we were not quite aware of but has been brought to our attention.
“Princeton Review” ranked our Fairfield University #19 on the list of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) unfriendly campuses.
Fairfield University is well known for their honorable rankings, but what about the ones that go unnoticed, or are hidden away, such as this one? What about rankings that attract negative attention?
“I wouldn’t say that it’s nonfriendly but I personally don’t know any of the support that we give to the gay community,” Erica Cianchette,’11 said upon hearing the news of the newly stated rankings. “I have never seen any unfriendliness specifically targeted at gay people, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it doesn’t happen.”
Administration seems to believe heavily in diversity and is known for their efforts on trying to diversify Fairfield University with the support they give to groups, and events they present on campus to students such as Diversity Week. FUSA President, Eddie Muniz, is right on board with adding and accepting diversity on Fairfield, but he added an interesting insight into why Fairfield may have possibly been named an unfriendly gay campus.
“I think that Jesuit Institutions are playing catch up with accepting and integrating a lot of the groups that have been discriminated against, but I can say that Fairfield has made significant improvements from the 80’s and 90’s when there were chants like “stags not fags” because of the first Alliance group that was formally recognized as a student organization,” he said. “Overall, I believe that Fairfield can still do more, but I don’t believe the statement to be completely true.”
Along with being named #19 on the list of LGBT unfriendly, “Forbes” ranked Fairfield #313 of “Americas Best Colleges” which fell behind colleges such as SUNY Stony Brook, University of North Carolina Wilmington, and many others.
Although attention is on Fairfield’s bad rankings, the University also holds many honorable rankings. According to the “US News and World Report’s 2010 edition of America’s Best Colleges,” Fairfield was ranked 4th among the Tier-1 Master’s Universities in the North along with being cited in the report among “Great Schools, Great Prices”. Fairfield was also listed as a “2010 Military Friendly School ranking the university in the top 15% of all colleges, universities and trade schools nationwide,” according to GI Jobs magazine.
Even though administration has their work cut out for them with diversifying the University’s campus and student body life, Muniz is ready to take part and help unify Fairfield.
“As the leader of the student body, I hope to work with Fairfield administrators to identify what needs to be done so that we can make improvements and ensure that all Stags feel like this is their home.”
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