The annual Campus Pride report card, which rates college campuses for their LGBTQ-friendliness, gave San Diego State University (SDSU) a five-star rating for their 2023 “Best of the Best” list, which was announced Aug. 24. All in all, 45 different criteria being met led to the high rating, including an LGBTQ Studies program, an LGBTQ living space, and a campus resource center.
Campus Pride said the “Best of the Best” list gives recognition to universities that make an effort “to create a safe and welcoming campus for their LGBTQ+ students, faculty and staff.”
“In the current climate, in which LGBTQ+ identities have become political talking points and laws are being weaponized against LGBTQ+ people, the commitment to creating campuses that welcome and protect LGBTQ+ students cannot be taken for granted,” said Campus Pride CEO and Executive Director Shane Mendez Windmeyer, in Thursday’s announcement.
“The students — they really are part of what makes SDSU the ‘best of the best,’” said Kay Wong, director of SDSU’s Pride Center. “They are part of who are creating this campus culture and the campus environment that people feel like they can be themselves, that they can be out.”
Just 30 colleges and universities made the annual list, with SDSU being the only one in California. Southern Oregon University, Ashland, was the only other college on the entire West Coast to make the list. This is SDSU’s third year in a row to make the rankings.
SDSU’s Pride Center is about to celebrate its 10th anniversary in January. The school is still working on ways for students to change their legal name to their preferred name across the campus, but the same officials who are championing every other aspect of inclusion on campus are working on it.
About 8 % of SDSU students identify as LGBTQ, based on figures the school submitted to INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine/website in 2022. For more information, visit campuspride.org.
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