Sense of Community for UCI Gays : New Center Offers Information and Counseling to Students in an Atmosphere of Full Acceptance

For students such as Neil Perry, a senior who came to grips with being gay after he entered college, the opening of a campus center for gays and lesbians arrives a few years late.

But he takes heart in knowing that the new Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Resource Center at UC Irvine is now available to others. Opened just three weeks ago, the center is meant to offer interested students a source of information and community.

Perry, who will work through the center as a peer counselor to other gay and lesbian students, said the mere existence of the center would have helped him.

“It’s such a message . . . saying, ‘Yes, there are other people that feel like you,’ ” Perry said.

The UCI facility is believed to be the only campus resource center for gays and lesbians in Orange County and one of the few of its kind in the state.

Besides providing a place where gay students can share concerns, the center will be a central location on campus for research on related issues, said Pat Walsh, the center’s director.

Located behind the university’s Cross Cultural Center near the center of campus, the center consists of two offices, a meeting room and a reception room. It also has a small library of books, magazines and educational videos about gay, lesbian and bisexual issues.

Walsh said the center has received an overflow of support from UCI administration and students, many of whom are not directly tied to the school’s gay and lesbian population.

The center will sponsor “Out and About Week at UCI” May 15-19, an event meant to promote awareness of gay and lesbian issues on campus, Walsh said.

In addition to office space, the center has an annual budget of $5,000 from the university. Walsh said she and center volunteers will begin looking for outside funding over the next few months.

While the center currently serves only as a clearinghouse for the university’s resources and materials on the subject, Walsh said she would like to see the center grow into a full-fledged research facility over the next several years.

Walsh said the center will work to educate all students, faculty and staff on a number of gay, lesbian and bisexual issues.

“Our primary goal is to strengthen our student support services,” Walsh said. “Our second goal is to provide support to academic affairs, to be a resource to faculty who would like their curriculum to represent the gay, lesbian and bisexual community.”

Students who graduate without any exposure to the gay community are missing an essential part of their education, she said.

“If students aren’t aware of the differences that exist in our society, then they’re not going to work and function in this pluralistic society of ours,” said Walsh. “If they’re not aware, they’re going to be at a disadvantage.”

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Robert F. Gentry, associate dean of students at UCI, said he and other university officials had struggled for about 10 years to establish the center.

A former mayor of Laguna Beach and the first openly gay official elected in Southern California, Gentry has also been the co-chairman of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Lesbians and Gays at UCI for more than a decade.

The center is crucial for gays and lesbians to feel and be treated as a significant part of university life, Gentry said.

“It will tell every gay and lesbian student on the campus . . . that the campus is hospitable to them and welcomes them,” Gentry said. “It is probably the most powerful statement we as an institution can make.”

Establishment of the center was approved six months ago, after a recommendation by the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Lesbians and Gays, which found that there was not enough support available in existing university programs.

Although gay and lesbian students have always used the university’s counseling programs, “We have never had any kind of organizational network specifically . . . to address the needs of this population,” Walsh said.

“Students go into crisis and the counseling center is available and always has been, but we don’t have much of a safety net.”

Tom Burkhart, who like Perry is a senior working as a peer counselor at the center, said that because of his sexual orientation, “I always felt I was a second-class citizen,” and the center will doubtlessly help others with those feelings.

“Being vocal about who I am is a way for me to recover (from that experience),” Burkhart said. “It’s very therapeutic.”

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Despite a lack of acceptance in some circles, Walsh said she feels that the gay and lesbian community has many allies on campus. “The center really provides an opportunity for allies to get involved,” she said.

More than 100 students turned out for a meeting in February between UCI fraternities and sororities and the university’s gay and lesbian community, Walsh said. She said students discussed ways that the students could work together better, and the groups are looking to establish an alliance.

While there has been no significant opposition to the center, Walsh said she is prepared for that as the center begins carving out its place on campus.

“People put a lot of energy into surviving, and that’s why a center like this is essential: to establish visibility and to strengthen our community,” she said.