Harvard's first director of BGLTQ student life, Vanidy "Van" Bailey, has prioritized forging connections across the University.

Each Tuesday afternoon this past academic year, Harvard students had an opportunity they had never had before—the chance to attend office hours with the College’s first permanent director of bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer student life.

Since beginning work as the head of the fledgling Office of BGLTQ Student Life last July, Vanidy “Van” Bailey has filled the first administrative position representing the BGLTQ community at Harvard. In this role, Bailey has embarked on a campaign to raise awareness of centralized resources and to create a warm and accepting environment for students on campus.

“I’m just wildly passionate about fostering supportive community that represents the diversity of the BGLTQ community,” Bailey said in an interview in the Office last week. “I’m here to make sure that people can see themselves in this Office regardless of their gender or sexual orientation.”

Community members say without hesitation that Bailey’s first year on the job has been a successful one. Still, they say, problems remain for the BGLTQ community at Harvard. As they push for the expansion of gender neutral spaces and greater resources for the full BGLTQ spectrum, they say Bailey’s progress in community building must be accompanied by administrative policy changes before BGLTQ life on campus can truly thrive.

TAKING THE HELM

Bailey’s new position has been in the works for several years. Soon after a working group released a report in spring 2011 recommending changes to address the undergraduate BGLTQ community’s needs, Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds announced plans to create a new office to support BGLTQ life and to hire a full-time director to oversee it.

After the first director picked to lead the Office abruptly turned down the job just days before she was scheduled to begin in fall 2011, administrators were forced to begin the search for a director anew. They chose Bailey, a young assistant director for education at the University of California, San Diego, to lead the new office. Bailey, who has a doctorate in education leadership from California State University—Northridge, had worked in student affairs at various colleges and universities since 2005.

Bailey said that with this background, the position at Harvard was a natural fit.

“I just have such a huge love for LBGT work in general,” Bailey said. “When I first started thinking about what was next for me...I knew that I wanted to be the leader of some kind of identity-based center.”

In an increasingly diverse BGLTQ community at Harvard, students say they think Bailey’s selection is especially significant given the new director’s ethnic and gender identity.

“The fact that the BGLTQ Office is headed not only by a transgender person, but also a person of color, is kind of revolutionary...it’s kind of unheard of,” said Riley, a rising sophomore who requested a pseudonym because his parents do not know that he is transgender. “I think it symbolically adds to conversations about intersectionality.”

BUILDING A COMMUNITY

Much of Bailey’s work in his first year on the job has been aimed at forging connections with constituencies across campus.

To this end, Bailey has devoted substantial time in his first months at Harvard to networking, and he has held at least two to three meetings per week, he estimates. In formal sit-downs and casual conversations, he has spoken with student organizations ranging from the Undergraduate Council to the Hindu student group Dharma, and talked with faculty members on the Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. He also extended his outreach to administrators at University Health Services, the Office of International Education, and the Office of the Assistant to the President for Institutional Diversity and Equity, among others.

Queer Students and Allies Co-Chair Ivel Posada ’14 said that even though Bailey was new to the job this year, he quickly established himself as a helpful resource.