Chapter 11: Challenges and Opportunities: Key Lessons in Using CRLL Environmental Dimensions to Research Queer Student Leadership

The room felt stuffy. Not in a bad way, but in an encouraging way; in a way that the air felt like it was filled with stories. On a warm Toronto day, in a boardroom at the ArQuives (Canada’s LGBTQ+ Archives), I sat with piles of folders in front of me spread across the table, each from a different university in Canada. I picked up the folder of the university I attended as an undergraduate student, opened it wide, and carefully started reviewing the treasures it held inside. The folder contained many different archival items including clippings from the campus newspapers about hate crimes, posters from the 1970s that were promoting a newly formed student group for gays and lesbians, educational pamphlets, club constitutions, flyers promoting parties and dances, copies of opinion pieces about how the campus was getting too gay, and more. As I sat there holding and taking in these items, delicately putting one down before carefully picking up the next, I saw glimpses of how my leadership learning experiences at that institution were contoured by the histories of queer inclusion and exclusion on campus.