How gay-friendly is Kent State?

For a long time, it was impossible to measure. It is still not clear how gay-friendly Kent State is, but this week Campus Climate Index gave the university its first report card. The score didn’t spell out Excellence in Action, but it is a starting point.

Kent State received 3.5 stars out of five, the average rating amongst Ohio’s 15 other universities rated by the Campus Climate Index, a website started by Campus Pride more than five years ago that informs university officials, parents and students of advantages and disadvantages specific universities offer LGBT students.

Student leaders and officials from more than 324 universities across the nation have answered the website’s 80-question assessment. Christina McVay, a faculty associate with the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion finished KSU’s assessment last week after Kent State’s LGBTQ Advisory Committee gave the final approval.

“(The Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) is using the assessment to gather baseline data to understand the experiences of LGBTQ populations at Kent State University,” Dr. Fashaad Crawford, associate vice president of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, said in a statement last week when he e-mailed Campus Pride the finished assessment.

Check out Kent State’s rating on campusclimateindex.org, and tell us what you think about it’s rating.

Also look for Fusion’s spring issue this April for an intuitive comparison between Kent State and the 15 Ohio colleges rated in the Campus Climate Index.