Queering the Co-Curricular: A Review of Progress at the First Degree Granting HBCU

Abstract

Queering the Co-CurricularA Review of Progress at the First Degree Granting HBCU Melina McConatha (bio), Denise Brown (bio), Lenetta Lee (bio), and Nafeesa Muhammad (bio) Extensive opportunities for growth and learning exist beyond classroom walls. In higher education, one may argue that some of the most important lessons fall outside of the traditional curriculum. While complimentary to the curriculum, co-curricular research and programming provides key emotional, social, and physical learning opportunities for students, often shaping the campus climate. In practice, co-curricular activities highlight intrapersonal development and provide a holistic and inclusive approach to learning (Beltman & Schaeben, 2012; Elias & Drea, 2013; Foubert & Grainger, 2006; Kuh, 2001). Co-curricular work also provides a unique opportunity to support gender and sexual diversity and inclusion on college campuses. Our contribution to this collection seeks to share a brief report of our efforts exploring the possibility of "queering" the co-curricular and developing an assessment tool to evaluate gender and sexuality norms that may be pervasive and limiting at our HBCU. To become more supportive for our LGTBQAI students, this coalition of faculty, administration and students examine how these norms and hierarchies shape co-curricular activities and, as a result, the larger campus culture. We began this process with a historical analysis of gender, sexuality, and Queer scholarship at HBCUs. HBCUs are uniquely positioned to study and support LGTBQAI students of color (Williams, 2013). The modern Civil Rights Movement, which theoretically ended the Jim Crow Era, marked the path for including gender and sexuality studies in higher education (Elfman, 2015). Forty years ago, Spelman College established the Women's Research and Resource Center (WRRC). Created for Black women, by Black women, [End Page 105] the Center became the first of its kind to be housed at an HBCU. Similar institutions such as Bennett College and Morgan State University followed suit and began offering women and gender studies programs. Similar to Spelman's WRRC, women studies programs at these HBCUs provided visibility to the complexities of gender and sexuality for the Black campus community. The interdisciplinary nature of these programs opened the door for thinking about gender and sexuality in historically Black educational spaces in nuanced ways (e.g., relational navigation; identity exploration; colorism; gender expression; etc.). Today, these programs continue to provide queer students on campus support in navigating historically rigid constructs of gender and sexuality in collegiate environments. Recently Spelman College announced that it was establishing an endowed chair in Queer Studies named for Audre Lorde (2019). This opportunity was developed in her honor to provide a space for scholars to work outside of racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic discourses. The WRRC launched the Audre Lorde Project with the goal of exposing LGBTQAI issues within and beyond the classroom (Guy-Sheftall, 2012). As other HBCUs strive to create similar inclusive queer campus activities and resources, an examination of how campus activities can work to deconstruct traditional gender and sexuality hierarchies is essential moving forward. With its own unique story, while also positioning education as a path towards inclusivity and freedom, Ashmun Institution was initially founded to educate Black men of African descent. Renamed Lincoln University (1866), the first degree-granting Historically Black University has a history of social justice work dating back to 1854 before the American Civil War. Lincoln University has served as a welcoming and affirming institution for many LGTBQAI Black graduates. However, our contemporary story has yet to develop an assessment plan for gender and sexuality diversity and inclusion in our campus community. As Audre Lorde (1986) shares, "it is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences." Cocurricular programming provides a space beyond the classroom to support these differences and cultivate a culture of kinship and belonging for LGTBQAI folks and, in turn, the larger campus community. Suskie (2014) identified five essential dimensions of co-curricular programming in higher education that we have incorporated in an assessment model to "queer" [End Page 106] our work. These tenants include: (1) focus, (2) relevance, (3) community, (4) evidence, and (5) betterment. In this coalition we identified our focus (1) to be "queering" the co-curricular. Queering was defined...