The administration has made noteworthy improvements within the past year in relation to responding to the concerns from students, faculty and staff about how to improve Syracuse University. However many facets of student and faculty life at SU leave room for improvement.

In particular policies, programs and initiatives that accommodate to the unanswered needs of LGBTQ students have yet to be made wide scale by the university. While several universities embraced International Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31, SU was not one of them.

As SU looks toward a brighter future under the chancellor’s OneUniversity plan, the existence of LGBTQ students on campus must not be forgotten on an administrative level. On a national landscape in which hetero-normativity and gender constructs pervasively intrude into the lives of all students, SU must work to become an environment that rejects these arbitrary principles as normality and stands as an example to all institutions.

On March 16, the university announced the implementation of a new student health insurance plan that requires all full-time students to be enrolled under some form of coverage compatible with national health care laws within the next two years.

While the details of the plans and the coverage that the university will provide remain unclear at this time, SU should use this as an opportunity to provide students with health care options that include transgender-inclusive coverage. Although the university covers transition-related medical expenses for faculty and staff under employee health insurance policies, SU does not provide these options under existing plans for students.

At this moment, SU has the chance to provide a more welcoming and supportive space for transgender students on a campus that lacks even a fair presence of gender-inclusive bathrooms. To cover hormone therapy, transition-related surgeries and other medical expenses, the university would provide students with options to live healthier, happier lives with the support of their college community behind them.

In the Academic Strategic Plan working draft sent out by Interim Vice Chancellor and Provost Liz Liddy as a part of Fast Forward Syracuse, the document outlined one goal as to “sustain an inclusive, accessible campus of opportunity for a richly diverse student body, including international students, students with disabilities, underrepresented students, and veterans.” One recommendation to this goal that most directly involves the lives of marginalized students is to “facilitate employee education opportunities to build cultural competence.”

In addition to supporting the health and well being of underrepresented students by covering transition-related medical costs, the administration must work to build a more educated staff when it comes to treating students with respect in regard to their identity.
This training must teach faculty and staff members how to combat their own bias, privilege and microaggressions when working on campus that directly affect students of all backgrounds and identities at SU.

There are offices and organizations actively working on campus to make SU a more supportive space for students whose identities may lack visibility on an administrative scale, including the LGBT Resource Center. But it is a campus-wide effort to create a more comfortable, respectful and welcoming college experience for students of all gender identities and expressions.

As the university welcomes speaker Kye Allums for Trans* Day of Liberation this week, the administration must remember that policies made within the next academic year consist of fair representation. In doing so SU will become a more inclusive environment during a time when LGBTQ social, cultural and political issues are often ignored within the United States.

Alexa Diaz is a freshman magazine journalism major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at adiaz02@syr.edu and followed on Twitter @AlexaLucina.

Published on April 7, 2015 at 11:45 pm