Guilford’s Learning Design and Development Technologist Jon Howle was an invited presenter at the 2023 Teaching Professor Conference in New Orleans earlier this summer. Jon's presentation called on higher education institutions to take meaningful action in supporting and empowering Trans-Spectrum students.

Jon says demand for lifting up Trans-Spectrum students – an umbrella term for people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth – continues to grow, but many colleges and universities have been slow to respond. “A lot of schools talk the talk but research shows that’s really all it is – talk,” says Jon. “It’s more than schools just asking ‘Do we have bathroom?’”

Jon’s presentation provided specific steps colleges can do to empower students. He engaged participants in discussing implications from the latest research on trans-spectrum students’ experiences in colleges across the United States.

He identified specific strategies that they can use to make their courses and campuses more inclusive, and encouraged schools to adopt Campus Pride Index, a national assessment that measures how schools are supporting their LGBTQIA+ community.

Jon says local and state politics can shape a college or university’s approach to LGBTQIA+ students, but there’s also a lack of resources and knowledge that hold back many schools.

Jon joined Guilford in May. He was a professor at Forsyth Technical Community College when Guilford College worked with the school to improve its support of LGBTQ+ students through the Campus Pride Index.

“I found Guilford’s willingness to work with another college extremely impressive,” says Jon. “Guilford is one of those colleges that really shows its desire for inclusiveness.”

Campus Pride recently named Guilford as one of America’s 30 most welcoming colleges for LGBTQIA+ students, the fifth time the school has been recognized in the past six years.