Vanidy Bailey named director of BGLTQ student life

Bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer undergraduates gain a new resource.

Vanidy M. Bailey

Vanidy M. Bailey will serve as director of Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Queer (BGLTQ) student life beginning July 16, dean of Harvard College Evelynn M. Hammonds announced this week. Bailey, who will report to the assistant dean of student life, will oversee all initiatives that support BGLTQ undergraduates. These include dealing with BGLTQ community issues (such as the challenges students face in developing their identities), advising student organizations, supervising the student-run Queer Resources Center, providing support for educational programming and staff training (including the BGLTQ specialty tutor and proctor program), and addressing alumni relations and policy development.

The new staff position emerged from a BGLTQ working group of students, faculty, and staff that met from late October 2010 to March 2011 and collected data about the nature of the BGLTQ student experience at the College. The group hosted 14 open forums (in each residential House and in the Yard), launched a University-wide survey, met with specialty tutors, faculty, alumni/ae, and current students, and studied peer institutions and best practices. 

The most-repeated refrain throughout, the report noted, was the critical need for a full-time director of BGLTQ student life:

Many of the criticisms of students and other community members who felt that existing resources are not well-coordinated or comprehensive can be addressed through the addition of an individual—well-versed in the developmental and intellectual needs of BGLTQ college students—to bring together the disparate but vital strands of BGLTQ life at Harvard College.

As assistant director for education at the University of California, San Diego since 2010, Bailey has implemented educational outreach programs, advised several student organizations, been a liaison on LGBT housing, and carried out various other LGBT-related activities. Previously, Bailey worked for three years at California State University, Northridge, first as community director and then as senior community director.

 “I am delighted that Vanidy Bailey has agreed to take on this new and exciting role at Harvard College,” Dean Hammonds said. “The director and the recently opened BGLTQ office and lounge in Boylston Hall will provide critical resources for undergraduates who identify as BGLTQ, or have questions about their sexuality. With years of student life experience, especially working with LGBT students and managing an array of programs at the LGBT Resource Center at UC-San Diego, Vanidy Bailey is ideally suited for the position here. I look forward to working with Vanidy to take the College's existing programs and resources for BGLTQ students and make them more robust and accessible.” 

Related topics

You might also like

Harvard President Alan Garber Helps First-Years Move In

As a potential settlement with the Trump administration looms, Garber gets students settled.

Harvard’s New Online Orientation Emphasizes Intellectual Paths

A summer course for first-years focuses on academic success, diverse viewpoints.

Motherhood and Ambition in a Pronatalist World

Gen Z is confronting the age-old question of balance—with a new twist.

Most popular

Two Years of Doxxing at Harvard

What happens when students are publicly named and shamed for their views?

A New Narrative of Civil Rights

Political philosopher Brandon Terry’s vision of racial progress

How MAGA Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.

Explore More From Current Issue

Brandon Terry, wearing a blue suit, standing before The Embrace, a large bronze sculpture of intertwined arms in Boston Common.

A New Narrative of Civil Rights

Political philosopher Brandon Terry’s vision of racial progress

Book cover of "Black Moses" by Caleb Gayle with subtitle about ambition and the fight for a Black state.

Civil Rights in the American West

A new book chronicles one man’s quest for a Black state.

Whimsical illustration of students rushing through ornate campus gate from bus marked “Welcome New Students.”

Highlights from Harvard’s Past

The Medical School goes coed, University poet wins Nobel Prize.