Bringing Youth Together

UofL LGBT Services, Common Ground, Baptist Campus Ministries & Pizza…who knew??

Last fall, several University of Louisville students sat in an area behind the Bingham Humanities building reading, listening to music and just hanging out doing the “normal” things university students do. No one would have thought much about their presence if they hadn’t staged their activities under a sign that proclaimed: “Live Homosexual Acts.”

But other students, members of the Baptist Campus Ministries, did notice and made their own signs. They read: “Free apologies.”

BCM students wanted to apologize for the fact that “Christians have said ‘we love you as people,’ but have acted in hate,” said BCM Director Bill Noe.

BCM further extended the olive branch when it asked commonGround, UofL’s LGBT student organization, if it could bring pizza to one of its meetings earlier this semester.

But rather than having just a social event, Brian Buford, program director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgendered Services Office, brought the groups together with activities designed to breakdown stereotypes and to help them see each other as people.

“That part of the meeting went very well, in part because of Brian and the tools he had,” said Ryan Kuyers, commonGround president.

“When the Baptist students said they wanted to disprove some of the myths about how intolerant or homophobic they are, I knew it was a wonderful opportunity to let people at ‘seemingly’ polar opposite ends of the spectrum figure out what they had in common,” Buford said. “So that was the focus of the workshop, to create a safe place for them to tell one another their stories and really listen. I’m not sure we fixed all the world’s problems in that hour, but we did create some relationships that have continued.”

“Breaking down stereotypes and dismantling misunderstandings is a central goal for the office,” Buford said.

UofL expanded LGBT Services in January when Buford became the office’s first full-time program coordinator.

“We strive to be a diverse university — one that is inclusive of everyone,” said Vice Provost for Diversity Mordean Taylor-Archer, “but we particularly want to pay attention to groups that have experienced discrimination and prejudice.

“Hiring a permanent employee for LGBT program manager shows the university’s commitment to that community,” she said.

LGBT Services, Buford said, will pay close attention to student-identified needs, but already it has started working closely with commonGround, begun efforts with the School of Medicine to help LGBT medical students feel more welcome and to better train doctors to work with LGBT patients and sponsored campus lectures by recognized LGBT experts.

Buford also plans to:

“The LGBT Services Office is important to UofL’s campus because it provides a safe haven for those students, faculty and staff that identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered,” said Kaila Story, Audre Lorde Chair in Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality. “It also provides these same people with adequate programming that creates visibility and exposure to their issues that to me is integral to a university whose population is diverse.”

“To me,” Buford said, “this office is part of a broader mission for diversity across campus. We can’t work on LGBT issues alone without seeing the larger dynamic.”

For more information, contact Brian.Buford@louisville.edu or (502) 852-0696.

By Janene Zaccone

Reprinted with permission from UofL News at louisville.edu/news