USC to host LGBT Pride and Prep Day


USC will host the West Coast Campus Pride College Prep Day & Fair for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender high school students on Saturday, hoping to help the students find a school that suits them and to showcase USC’s LGBT community.

Campus Pride, a non-profit organization that works with LGBT-friendly campuses throughout the country, is partnering with USC’s LGBT Resource Center to host the annual event.

The fair, which began at UC San Diego three years ago, allows high school students and parents to interact with colleges from across the country.

“We work with LGBT colleges across the nation in order to build future leaders and to build safer and friendlier universities,” said Shane Windmeyer, executive director of Campus Pride. “The fair program has taken off.”

The USC LGBT Resource Center approached Windmeyer this year about bringing the fair to Los Angeles.

“We lobbied for it,” said Vincent Vigil, executive director of the LGBT Resource Center. “We thought USC was in a perfect location for this conference. The thought was to bring the event to USC in order to increase attendance and awareness of LGBT events.”

At the fair, students will have the chance to interact with representatives from more than 20 different universities, Windmeyer said. The representatives will be able to talk to prospective students and explain what makes their campuses LGBT-friendly.

Carolyn Laub, executive director of the Gay Straight Alliance Network, said she believes LGBT students look for specific aspects when considering a campus.

“Students look to see that the college has policies that include not only sexual orientation but also gender and expression,” Laub said. “It is important for these students to be accepted on campus and to have nondiscrimination protections.”

Laub said the fair also benefits the participating schools.

“It’s an important way for colleges that are LGBT-friendly to show how much they want to support and include LGBT students,” she said.

USC will be among the schools marketing themselves to LGBT students Saturday.

The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students, written by Windmeyer and published in 2006, named USC one of the top 20 most LGBT-friendly colleges.

Students at USC said they think the LGBT community has improved over the years.

“USC is incredibly LGBT-friendly,” said Richard Fletcher, the assistant director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Assembly. “Seeing how accepting the campus was made me feel more comfortable about my own identity.”

Karen Marcus, public relations chair for the GLBTA, said the group has begun expanding its reach on campus.

“We are reaching out to different sectors,” Marcus said of the organization’s partnerships with campus ethnic and religious groups. “And I think it has worked.”

Fletcher, a USC representative at the fair last year, said the fair would have been useful to him when he was choosing schools.

“It’s a great step for universities to reach out to LGBT students. Vincent has done a great job getting the word out,” Fletcher said.

Unlike other fairs, the event at USC will also feature a college-prep component. The prep day will consist of three workshops in the morning, followed by lunch, the actual fair and a tour of the campus.

The fair will give prospective LGBT students an opportunity to learn about college, how to apply for scholarships and gain insight to the LGBT program.

“Particularly, we want to teach what questions to ask when students are considering to apply,” Windmeyer said.

Vigil said he believes the partnership between USC’s LGBT community and Campus Pride speaks to the heart of the university.

“I think that in relation to USC’s standards in terms of reaching out to the community we are aligned with those standards,” he said.