Oct. 26 meeting to address TBLG task force recommendations

The University is moving ahead on recommendations from the Task Force on the Campus Climate for Transgender, Bisexual, Lesbian and Gay (TBLG) Faculty, Staff and Students. U-M leaders will discuss progress at a town hall meeting Oct. 26.

The meeting will be in the Vandenberg Room of the Michigan League from
6-7:30 p.m. Paul N. Courant, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, and E. Royster Harper, vice president for student affairs, will update members of the University community on the status of the recommendations and will answer questions. The meeting is open to all interested members of the community.

The recommendations are contained in a report released earlier this year (available at http://www.umich.edu/~provost/reports/tblg/index.html) on ways to improve the campus climate for the TBLG community. Eighteen recommendations are grouped into several categories, including the rights of transgender persons, awareness education and safety, services and support, health care, curricular and scholarly issues, other areas of concern, implementation, and the University's interaction with external organizations.

"We take these concerns of the TBLG community very seriously," Courant says. "I applaud the task force for its thoughtful and thorough work as we go about considering the task force recommendations. The Oct. 26 town hall meeting is the next step in our effort to inform and involve everyone in our community in achieving the committee's goal as stated in the title of the report. At this point in the history of the University, it is especially important for us to give focused attention to addressing the needs of transgender faculty, staff and students."

Specific recommendations include amending a regents' non-discrimination bylaw to include "gender identity," enhancing efforts to educate the University community on TBLG issues, and reviewing and improving specific support and services for transgender faculty, staff and students such as health services and benefits.

Harper says U-M is a community that values all of its members. "We want to be that community in both theory and practice," she says. "The task force recommendations as well as the Gender Identity Working Group recommendations are just two examples of the University's ongoing commitment to help meet the needs of our community."

A plan to address the recommendations has been endorsed by President Mary Sue Coleman and the executive officers. The plan provides for follow up by individual executive officers on issues within their areas, and subcommittees for recommendations that apply to multiple vice presidential areas.

The executive officers will share their progress with each other and receive updates from subcommittee chairs in spring 2005. The provost then will convene an ad hoc committee to review progress and share with the University community information about what has been accomplished.

Bruce Frier, professor of classics and law, and chair of the task force, says the group has recommended many changes that will bring the University up to speed in the areas of sexual orientation and gender identity.

"In the report, we urge the adoption of long-term, coherent policies that anticipate problems likely to emerge in the coming decade, particularly in the area of gender identity where the University has had, until now, only a series of ad hoc policies," Frier says. "Although we do not anticipate that every one of our recommendations will be carried out, we are satisfied that the Provost's Office will act forcefully to implement the broad design we have devised."

Comments can be sent to TBLGComments@umich.edu. The message group is maintained by staff in the Office of the Provost who, when sharing the comments, will not identify the names of the people who submitted them without their express permission.

More Stories

• Three faculty selected for IOM membership
• Regent candidates to discuss issues at Oct. 25 forum
• Oct. 26 meeting to address TBLG task force recommendations
• Overall 2004 enrollment sets record
• Chancellor review process to begin in Dearborn
• Board to oversee vendor code compliance
• A new culprit in depression?
• Editor's Note