Though Tufts is known today as a haven for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students - it was ranked in the top 20 LGBT-friendly schools by "The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students" last year - this hasn't always been the case. The LGBT Center, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year, has followed a long road to its current place of acceptance and influence on campus.
As the Center celebrates its 15-year anniversary, its members are looking at how its role has changed over time - and how those changes represent broader developments at Tufts and in the world at large.
"I think there's been a huge cultural shift in acceptance of LGBT people, which has happened to some extent nationally and especially on the Tufts campus," said Dona Yarbrough, the LGBT Center director.
It was 1992 when Tufts founded its first center for gay students in the basement of Lewis Hall. In the years before, a drop-in center had taken residence in Curtis Hall, and Hayes House on Chetwynd Road had become the center of social programming for LGBT students. But a full-on center was new and welcome on campus.
Since then, the queer community's presence at Tufts has morphed time after time. The first organization for LGBT Jumbos was Tufts Gay Community, formed in the spring of 1972. TGC became the Tufts Lesbian and Gay Community in 1981, then the Tufts Lesbian Gay Bisexual Community in 1988, then Tufts Transgender Lesbian Gay and Bisexual Collective in 1997, and finally the Queer Straight Alliance as of 2005.
But according to Yarbrough, the center has changed more than just its name - the experience of being an LGBT student at Tufts has changed too.
"I've had alumni tell me that they had a terrible experience being gay at Tufts 15 or 20 years ago, but you would be hard-pressed to find a gay student who would say that today," she said.
The LGBT Center has played no small part in that change, she said, as students have found a safe place to create their home away from home. Junior Sofia Nelson said the center has been a haven for her on campus.
"[The LGBT Center] has given me a safe space to go to," she said. "It's a place where I can talk about my changing identity and get support for whatever it is I'm going through and try to better understand it, whether it's with my peers that also hang out here or through access to the resources the center provides."
For one alumna, having the LGBT Center available helped even before she had visited.
"I knew where [the center] was for a long time before I ever went inside," Sarah Sahn (LA '05) said. "There was something reassuring about knowing it was there, even though I was too scared to go in." Sahn said she was afraid that everyone would "know" if she went to the Center.
Yarbrough said the LGBT Center's purpose is to help students overcome such fears. She said that, over time, students have felt more comfortable looking to the center for help.
"There are certainly students who wouldn't want their pictures taken at events, but there's certainly a lot more comfort with being out and being openly associated with the [LGBT] community and the center [than there was 30 years ago]," Yarbrough said.
Yarbrough said that the growth of the LGBT Center has gone hand-in-hand with Tufts' growing reputation as an LGBT-friendly school. She said only 5 percent of American universities have LGBT centers.
Guillermo Porras-Cortes, a graduate student at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, said the LGBT Center was a major reason he chose to enroll at Tufts.
"I learned about the Center during my master's application process and the [LGBT] Center was one of the reasons why I chose Tufts," he said in an e-mail to the Daily. "When going to college in Mexico - my home country - these kind of resources didn't exist at educational institutions, so most LGBT students spent our lives in isolation."
Yarbrough's position as the Center's full-time coordinator is another mark of how far it has come since its inception.
"Older alumni are amazed that there is a full-time LGBT Center director," said John Francis (LA '04), the president of Pride on the Hill, Tufts' LGBT alumni group. "Anyone who graduated before the early nineties had no resources like this."
Students involved with the Center said it serves as a focal point for academic and social programming for the LGBT community and the rest of the student body.
"It's a great place for students to hang out and it's a great study space," Sahn said. "It's a place to go if you're on campus during the day and you need a place to go hang out and check your email."
Nelson said that many of her friendships at Tufts were formed at the LGBT Center through various discussion groups and social programs.
"I've met a lot of my social network there," she said. "My social network has evolved out of the groups I've been involved in, and the LGBT Center has played a large role in my life at Tufts."
The traditional purpose of the LGBT Center - to serve as a resource for students with questions about sexuality and identity - has remained at the core of its mission.
"What drew me in was that I needed someone to talk to and I knew someone inside would be there to talk to," Sahn said.
Sometimes the Center is a reminder for students that they are not alone.
"It [is] great to see a university opening a venue for us, where we can network with other students, share our concerns and aspirations, and above all see that you're not the only one," Porras-Cortes said.
For others, it's the first place to turn as a freshman: "I first came [to the Center] during the first day of freshman orientation when they had their open house, and I've been coming back ever since," Nelson said.
The LGBT Center is part of the Group of Six, a group of culture-related organizations at Tufts made up of the Asian American Center, the Africana Center, the Latino Center, the International Center, the Women's Center and the LGBT Center. Working within the Group of Six is a major part of the LGBT Center's work.
"Although the [LGBT] Center focuses on sex and gender identity, we also do a lot of collaborative work with other centers," Yarbrough said. "I've heard students say that sometimes centers have an outward rep for separating people, but that anybody who works closely with them knows how much we work together."
Nelson said she has been affected by her work with the Group of Six through the LGBT Center.
"Through my contacts at the Africana Center, the Latino Center [and] the Women's Center, I've gotten a larger political consciousness and a larger concept of social justice," Nelson said.
In 1998, the LGBT Center held the first Safe Colleges Conference, an event that brings together LGBT students from around New England to discuss LGBT issues and ideas for change. The event has been held annually ever since.
The LGBT Center has left its mark on official administrative policies at Tufts, too. In 2005, Tufts added gender identity to the discrimination policy, in large part because of the LGBT Center's work, according to Yarbrough.
"It's a big step for the university to even recognize that [gender identity discrimination is important]," Yarbrough said. "As an institution we're just beginning to recognize transgender issues."
While Tufts may not have the most outspoken queer community, it is still effective, Nelson said.
"Some universities have a more established and radical queer community," she said. "At Tufts it's small, but established, and has a pretty loud voice."
