Chapter 13: In Our Own Voice: Campus Climate as a Mediating Factor in the Persistence of LGBT Students, Faculty, and Staff in Higher Education

Throughout the United States, in elementary and secondary schools and on college and university campuses, in communities, homes, and in the media, issues of sexual and gender identities are increasingly “coming out of the closet.” We see some young people developing positive identities at earlier ages than ever before. Activists are gaining selective electoral and legislative victories. Primarily in academic environments, greater emphasis and discussions are centering on what has come to be called “queer theory” (Sullivan, 2003; Wilchins, 2004), where writers, educators, and students analyze, challenge, and deconstruct current sexuality and gender constructions and categorizations.

In the midst of these progressive advancements, however, conditions related to campus climate often remain difficult at best for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) students. Researchers have developed a number of theoretical models to conceptualize and describe the campus climate at colleges and universities (Hurtado, Carter, & Kardia, 1998; Milem, Chang, & Antonio, 2005; Smith et al., 1997). Rankin and Reason (2008) have synthesized a definition of “campus climate” from their review of the professional literature as comprising “current attitudes, behaviors, and standards held by faculty, staff, and students concerning the access for, inclusion of, and level of respect for individual and group needs, abilities, and potential” (p. 264). Using the dimensions proposed by Smith et al. (1997), Rankin (2003) developed and later conceptualized (Rankin & Reason, 2008) the Transformational Tapestry Model, which posits that campus climate is influenced by six areas within higher education: access and retention (i.e., access to higher education and provision of the necessary supports for success and retention); research and scholarship (i.e., encouragement of diversity in educational and scholarly activity); inter- and intra-group relations (i.e., a diverse student body with educationally purposeful interventions and interactions); curriculum and pedagogy (i.e., diversity education and proactive educational interventions); university policies and services (i.e., university commitment to diversity and social justice through response to harassment, and written and behavioral policies); and external relationships (i.e., acknowledgment of and response to external influences in society and government).