LGBTQ+ History at Loyola

Summer 2024
Loyola creates the LGBTQ+ Student Services department and hires the inaugural director, Pat Cassidy (he/him; MA ' 19).

Fall 2021
The Office of Residence Life and Housing begins offering all-gender housing, providing LGBTQIA+ students the option to select housing that is consistent with their gender identity.

The Chosen Name Policy is implemented.

OUTLoyola participates in the workgroup to review pronoun usage in campus systems, which continues through 2023.

Spring 2019
The LGBTQ+ Services Graduate Assistant position is created. The position is filled for a couple of academic years and becomes vacant during the COVID-19 pandemic. The position is reinstituted in 2024 with the creation of the Office of LGBTQIA+ Services.

Students form a new club on campus, the LGBTQ+ Experience.

Fall 2018
The Pride Resource Room (PRR) opens after a series of renovations to the Andrew White Student Center, focused on re-envisioning intersectional and affinity student spaces. The PRR marks the creation of an intentional space for LGBTQPIA+ students to gather in community.

Spring 2018
The new Coordinator of LGBTQ+ Services position is created within the Counseling Center to support programs such as IgnatianQ, In, Out, and In Between Group, and Peer Mentorship Program.

Loyola hosts the 5th annual IgnatianQ Conference, February 9-11, 2018. The theme of the 2018 IgnatianQ conference is “Cura Personalis: Resilience in Our Wholeness”. In the spirit of Loyola’s Ignatian call for honoring cura personalis and cura apostolica, the conference acknowledges that caring for the whole unique person and caring for a diverse community is hard work. Loyola honors the legacy of the past four conferences and seeks to incorporate past conference themes of acknowledgement (2014), contemplation (2015), celebration (2016), and community (2017). Loyola also builds on these themes and looks to the future while focusing on building resilience in the Loyola community.

The LGBTQPIA+ Peer Mentorship Program is created through a collaboration between Loyola undergraduate and graduate students and the Counseling Center.

Fall 2017
The 2017 Commitment to Justice Panel, “Sexuality and Justice: Beyond Rhetoric”, shares personal journeys of identity as they relate to sexuality and justice, with the panel discussion featuring Loyola students, faculty, and staff, and keynote speaker Sivagami (“Shiva”) Subbaraman, Director of the LGBTQ Resource Center at Georgetown University.

The Office of Residence Life and Housing (Loyola’s office for residential affairs) creates a new position, Associate Director for Inclusion and Community Development, designed to formalize support for LGBTQPIA+ students.

2016
Noted scholar Mark Jordan delivers a university-sponsored lecture on the topic of theology and sex.

2015
Loyola offers its first explicitly LGBTQ+-themed course: Special Topics in Dramatic History/Literature: Queer Theatre and Film (DR 362). The course is later formalized as a unique course with its own course number (DR 370). Other courses had long covered LGBTQ+ topics.

All-gender signage is installed for all single-use restroom facilities.

2014
“Gender identity” is added to institutional non-discrimination policy and Core Values statement by unanimous vote of the Loyola Conference.

Spectrum officially changes name of Sexual Diversity Awareness Week (SDAW) to Sexual and Gender Diversity Awareness Week (SAGDAW) to better include transgender voices and topics.

2011
OUTLoyola begins offering Safe Zone training to campus employees and student groups to foster a welcoming environment for LGBTQ+ individuals and their allies. The training is updated and remains available about once per semester.

2010
Loyola begins offering health and other benefits to legally domiciled adults following a 2008 recommendation by OUTLoyola that was passed by Loyola Conference. 

2004
Loyola Employee Sexual Diversity Alliance (LESDA) begins meeting. The group is renamed to OUTLoyola in 2008 and remains active today.

2003
In Fall 2003, the Office of Residence Life and Housing, along with student leaders, create Stonewall House, a special interest housing community for sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Its mission is to provide an understanding, accepting, and nurturing environment for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and allied students (GLBTA). The members of Stonewall community agree to foster open and honest campus-wide discussions about diversity issues surrounding sexual orientation and the lives and experiences of sexual minorities.

The Academic Senate passes a proposal from Spectrum to include a diversity statement in its undergraduate Curriculum Aims. The statement includes sexual orientation.

2002
Spectrum hosts the first annual Sexual Diversity Awareness Week (SDAW).

1995
GLOBAL, Loyola’s first GLBT Awareness and Support Group, is founded. The group changes its name to Spectrum in 1999 to support all LGBTQ+ undergraduate students, allies, and friends. The group remains active today.