<p>Lafayette is one of the schools I am seriously considering attending next fall. However, one thing that is holding me back a little bit is my concerns that a school like Lafayette would not exactly be the most welcoming place for a gay student and whether or not there are many gays on campus in the first place. With a school seemingly heavily populated by jocks and sorority/fraternity types and no major city in close proximity, I was unsure as to how "gay-friendly" you guys are, and whether or not a gay man would be comfortable on campus. If anyone could lend better insight on this issue i would really appreciate it.</p>
<p>yankee5752,</p>
<p>That's a great question, one that I have yet to respond to on these boards!</p>
<p>Although Lafayette students are often classified as conservative, that in no way means gay students must face intolerance. In general, college is a very welcoming and open-minded place, where students can feel free to be themselves without feeling ostracized. </p>
<p>Lafayette does have a gay/lesbian advocacy group on campus called QuEST (Questioning Established Sexual Taboos), and it has a solid backing from gay and straight students alike. They held a well-received rally on campus last year called "Gay? Fine By Me"...check out a short video of the event here: Lafayette</a> College.</p>
<p>I have many gay friends on campus. Although I'm sure they could provide you with the most accurate idea of what it's like to be a student at Lafayette, from what I've witnessed, they seem to lead normal college lives. I should also mention that many professors are openly gay, and students are respectful of that as well.</p>
<p>You say that Lafayette isn't near a major city...Philadelphia is about an hour drive south, and NYC is about an hour fifteen from campus! As for your comment on "jocks," just know that only about 20% of students are varsity athletes. Furthermore, I would definitely hesitate to classify one group as more or less "gay-friendly" based on athletic ability...I think it has more to do with upbringing, no?</p>
<p>It's great that you're taking the time to ask around, because I'm sure "gay-friendliness" differs somewhat campus to campus. I hope you are able to get in touch with at least a few students who shared similar concerns during the college search.</p>
<ul>
<li>Justin</li>
</ul>
<p>thanks for the info. it was very helpful. if there any other people out there who can provide input into this discussion i would still appreciate it</p>
<p>Lafayette is accepting, but at the same time it is a small school, meaning there will be less of every group. You would find a larger gay population at, say, NYU or at a large university, but you will still be comfortable at Lafayette.</p>
<p>probably too late for you, but if you're gay, don't come to Lafayette. Your life would very much suck.</p>
<p>jay115,</p>
<p>Wow. Very informative.</p>
<p>I see Lehigh is educating you well. What frat house do you belong to?</p>
<p>Care to elaborate on your contrary and conditional remark? I'm sure others are as curious as I am -- any motive(s)? For your sake, I hope you have something better to do than write irrelevant comments on an online message board.</p>
<ul>
<li>Justin</li>
</ul>
<p>Sure. </p>
<p>My name's Jason, and I sit on the board of QuEST, which stands for Questioning Established Sexual Taboos, here at Lafayette College.</p>
<p>Almost every gay who's out of the closet at Lafayette College will tell you life here isn't bundles of fun, and I actually know a couple people who waited until after they graduated to come out of the closet. This isn't to say the college administration isn't supportive. Almost every dean and professor I have relationships with are supportive, and would be supportive if I had any problems.</p>
<p>However, as most people know, college life doesn't fully revolve around the classroom, and socialization and affinity with your fellow college students is just as important. It's only been a couple years since Lafayette was removed from the Princeton Review's list of most homophobic colleges.</p>
<p>The students here at Lafayette are, by the most part, hold similar mindsets. Rich, politically liberal, but with conservative mindsets who hail from the tri-state area. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, and I've made my share of friends here.</p>
<p>So, candyman92486, my motive would be for prospective kids to get the best college experience possible. I hold no loyalty to Lafayette College. By all means it's an exceptional school with an amazing engineering program and incredibly supportive faculty/administration. But the students here are closed minded beyond any comparison, and there's no going around that.</p>
<p>I was actually bored trying to set up my independent study when I googled "gay" + "Lafayette College" to see if QuEST's website would pop up, but this little number popped up instead.</p>
<p>If anyone has any other questions, feel free to email me: <a href="mailto:pangj@lafayette.edu">pangj@lafayette.edu</a>. I can also forward you to other out gays here on campus that might have different point of views.</p>
<p>I suppose I was hasty in making my first post. I just read candyman92486's post that, "Although Lafayette students are often classified as conservative, that in no way means gay students must face intolerance. In general, college is a very welcoming and open-minded place, where students can feel free to be themselves without feeling ostracized," and that just screamed BULLS*IT. </p>
<p>Some people are quite adept in working and living in a place where you can thrive under strong adversity. One of my friends who's a lesbian here loves the amount of intolerance on this campus because she knows that she won't become complacent, and will keep pushing for equal rights here. </p>
<p>However, there are others who also work to reverse homophobia, but just don't want to drop 50K every year to do so. </p>
<p>I'll take back my statement about making an opinion of whether a gay student should apply to Lafayette. However, I do want to make sure gay kids who are struggling with the issue, like I was in high school, aren't told that Lafayette is all flowers and candy with open arms for kids like them, because it's not.</p>
<p>So unless you happen to be gay yourself, candyman92486, I don't think you can make a decision about how "supportive" or "open-minded" the student body is towards GLBTQ issues.</p>
<p>It is my policy on these boards not to respond to ad hominem attacks.</p>
<p>This thread, for all intents, is closed. Thank you for your understanding.</p>
<p>^ Maybe jay115 is just a little bit embittered. However, jay115, I think it's important that you understand how what you said came out. The entire thing felt malicious - there's no way that candyman92486 can PRESUME that you're gay, because your response had no supporting substance. Why didn't you include all of that at the start? A reasonably intelligent person is going to question the purpose of what you're writing; we can't assume the perspective. Your response was indeed very ad hominem. </p>
<p>Sadly, I've heard similar things about a lot of rural-ish areas in PA. My boyfriend just started school today, spent the weekend at his campus and is terrified. When there was an acceptance (play? drama? something of that nature) show shown many of the people (including his six, very heterosexual) roommates began mocking the production and making negative gay remarks. He also laughed a bit at first, but then realized that it was becoming excessive and soon felt really miserable. He says he plans on not telling anyone over there, which, while I find counterproductive, I really have to understand. It doesn't seem very positive at all. It feels very lonely if the only thing on your side is administration :-(</p>
<p>Come to NYU! :-)</p>
<p>There was absolutely no ad-hominem attack in Jason's post. He left a brief statement about gay life at Lafayette based on his own experiences and came back to elaborate on it later. Giving an honest opinion about what a school is like isn't an attack even if it's a strong statement, and it's certainly not ad-hominem unless candyman92486 thinks he IS Lafayette College. Which would be very strange. As is, it seems like candyman92486 is over-identified with Lafayette to the point where he sees any criticism of the school as an attack on him personally, which won't exactly help anyone get accurate information for their college search.</p>
<p>My girlfriend graduated from Lafayette in 2006, and while she loved the academics, she and Jason have very similar things to say about what it's like to be gay there. Short version: it sucked. </p>
<p>She didn't come out as queer to anyone at school until her senior year, and still wasn't out to a lot of her social circle when she graduated. There were other factors at play in addition to the homophobic environment at Lafayette, but it's hard to argue she wouldn't have come out and been more comfortable with herself sooner at a more tolerant school. A lot of the personal growth and discovery I did around my sexuality my first couple of years of college (at a by no means perfect, but much more open and accepting large state university), she didn't start to do until she was in grad school. That's a pretty big delay when you take into account that a lot of queer students who come out when they get to college are already making up for lost time and missed experiences from being closeted in high school.</p>
<p>I've only been to the Lafayette campus once, but it was a very uncomfortable experience. It's certainly very pretty, and my gf's friends and former professors I met were very nice, but we also got a lot of strange looks if we were the slightest bit affectionate. I felt like I was constantly being judged and gawked at for not looking like a stereotypical feminine straight woman (short hair + masculine clothes + boobs was apparently too much for people to handle).</p>
<p>Again, there were some individual people my girlfriend knew at Lafayette who were fantastic, professors and students alike, and she enjoyed the academics there a lot. That doesn't change the fact that the overall environment was/is very intolerant to an extent I didn't expect to see at a college in this century.</p>
<p>This seems like a great start to an intellectually-stimulating debate.</p>
<p>My definition of ad hominem came not from Wikipedia, but from three respected NYC attorneys who were blind to the context, source, and originator of my remark. </p>
<p>I continue to stand by my words, despite your pseudo-Jungian analysis of my attachment to Lafayette.</p>
<ul>
<li>Justin</li>
</ul>
<p>Then your 3 NYC attorneys are using it in a context my philosophy professors wouldn't be very happy with. Oh well. Now we're in an appealing-to-experts stalemate :)</p>
<p>How are you better qualified to comment on the experience of being gay at Lafayette than people who have actually lived it? There are some things you can't tell from the outside. I'm not saying your speculation is worthless, but it's absurd that you refuse to see any value in anyone else's experiences with this issue. It's also bizarre that you're not distinguishing at all between a criticism and an attack--I certainly don't see any attacks in Jason's longer post, which is the one that led you to declare the discussion closed.</p>
<p>Your post describes your perceptions of gay life at Lafayette, as a straight man who goes there. My and Jason's perceptions of the school don't mesh with yours very well at all, and since the OP asked about factors like comfort, I think we're in a better position to judge. What's the harm in admitting that your perceptions may not match up to the lived reality?</p>