By Menaka Fernando
BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
mfernando@media.ucla.edu
On one side of a small office of the colorfully decorated LGBT
Resource Center ““ tucked away inside the spanking new
redbrick walls of the recently opened Student Activities Center
““ sits the top official on all issues that affect students
living on the Hill. On the other side, sits the head adviser for
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students who make up about
10 percent of the campus population.
Both authoritative women have come together on a warm summer
morning to relay one message: They are here to make the campus
experiences of students both living on the Hill and belonging to
the LGBT community as comfortable as possible.
Sitting across from each other, Suzanne Seplow, the director of
the Office of Residential Life, and Ronni Sanlo, the director of
the LGBT Resource Center, share almost identical views about what
incoming LGBT students should know when they arrive in their new
college living environment ““ so identical that they were only
one step shy of finishing each others’ sentences.
First it is important to note that it is not only LGBT students
who may have difficulty adjusting to dorm life, Sanlo said.
“Just about anyone who’s different will have a
different experience,” she said.
“Raised in this society, you are automatically racist,
sexist “¦ heterosexist,” Sanlo also said, adding that
meeting people from different backgrounds was the only way to
eliminate these “isms.”
Seplow nodded in agreement and added that roommates may have a
variety of points of contention ““ from smoking to sexual
orientation. And it is the job of her office to make the Hill as
inclusive as possible, she said.
But there are many who believe there is room for improvement
when it comes to the inclusion of LGBT students on the Hill.
A problem first-year LGBT students may experience when they
arrive on campus is wanting to be open about their sexual or gender
identity and facing animosity from roommates, has said Kian
Boloori, former chairman of the Queer Alliance, a coalition of LGBT
student groups on campus.
“I know countless people who come to UCLA wanting to be
open … but (who) get a homophobic roommate.”
Boloori and other student leaders circulated a petition last
year to add a question about LGBT students on the housing
application. The question would require new students to indicate
whether they would feel comfortable living with a LGBT.
Genevieve Espinosa, who ran for a position on the undergraduate
student government, promised the inclusion of this question on the
housing application on her platform. Espinosa did not win her
election bid, but student leaders continue to discuss and push for
the issue.
Both Sanlo and Seplow said these students had meetings with each
of them. Still, both say the students’ efforts may be
premature.
“Their intentions are right on,” Sanlo said, but
added that more research about campus life had to be done to
support their assertions.
It would be far more effective to have a quantitative reason
with clear data when approaching housing officials than simply
relaying personal beliefs, she said.
Darren Chan, the internal vice president of the Undergraduate
Students Association Council (the candidate who beat Espinosa),
agreed that he wanted to do further research on other university
campuses before making a decision on whether the question would be
effective.
Chan, also having been a resident assistant last year, said he
had not noted any LGBT students having problems with their living
environments during his time on the Hill.
The question may also have the affect of opening the floodgates
to more questions and dividing residents in the dorms, Sanlo
said.
If different groups of students also want questions about their
respective communities, then “we begin to exclude people
rather than “¦ cast the widest net,” she said.
Though Sanlo said there were no reports of negative housing
experiences by LGBT students made in the resource center in the
past year, both she and Seplow agree that it is possible for
incoming students to have a bad coming-out experience, whether it
is on the Hill or elsewhere.
“And that breaks our hearts,” Sanlo jumped in as
Seplow was describing the reality of hardships that LGBT students
may experience.
But it is important to be aware of resources that students could
use for help, officials say.
Chan said he advises that students initially attempt to work out
their own problems privately by talking to their roommates. And if
conversation does not prove effective, students can take their
complaints to trained residential life officials, he said.
There is also the LGBT Resource Center, which provides
counseling and features numerous activities to promote the
awareness of LGBT issues on campus, Sanlo said.
More than anything, it is important for incoming students to
become involved on campus and find others with whom to share their
experiences, Seplow and Sanlo said.
The Office of Residential Life is located at 370 De Neve
Drive. The LGBT Resource Center is located in Suite B36 in the
Student Activities Center. The center is hosting community group
meetings every Wednesday at 5 p.m. during the summer.