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Creating Equitable Spaces for LGBTQ+ Students

By understanding structural barriers, we can create more equitable spaces for students, colleagues, and staff to succeed at our education institutions. Unfortunately, the LGBTQ+ community is often ignored when institutional diversity and inclusion discussions occur. This climate creates microaggressions that distract students, colleagues, and staff from being their most productive selves. Benny Chan has worked on an NSF-funded research project to provide LGBTQ+ Safe Zone training for STEM educators to raise awareness and to create culturally competent STEM professionals. As we understand the subtleties of the LGBTQ+ community, we can be proactive to create an inclusive climate. He uses an intersectional approach and will share the barriers that the LGBTQ+ community face and strategies to create inclusive spaces that are transferable to a variety of invisible marginalized groups.

Dr. Chan is a professor of Chemistry at The College of New Jersey. His research interests include synthesis and characterization of inorganic materials with potential applications in nanotechnology, thermoelectrics, batteries, and catalysis. He joined the faculty at TCNJ in 2006 after a one-year visiting professorship at Dickinson College. He attended Franklin and Marshall for his B.A. in Chemistry and, after a brief stint as a quality control chemist with Merck, went on to receive his Ph.D. at Pennsylvania State University. Following his doctoral degree, he completed a post-doctoral position at Colorado State University and Los Alamos National Laboratories.

• Led by: Dr. Benny Chan (The College of New Jersey)
• Date: Thursday, March 15, 2018
• Time: 3:30 - 4:30 PM
• Location: Mellon Seminar Room - LRC 532B
• Sponsor: CAT+FD

Tags: inclusion, diversity, lgbtqia
Format: presentation
Event ID: 01689