The Courage To Care: Addressing Sexual Minority Issues on Campus.

Sexual minority students face issues similar to those of ethnic and racial minority students. This article provides a framework for assessing the community college's inclusion of sexual minority students: lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals. The first section of the article assesses community colleges in terms of sexual minority issues. Colleges are generally assessed in three functional domains: education, services, and procedures and policies. Figure 1 provides an Institutional Assessment of Sexual Minority Status Checklist that contains several categories within each of the three functional domains. The second section of the article discusses three areas of critical understandings necessary for successful inclusion of sexual minority students: individual development, coming out, and prejudice and discrimination. Figure 3 provides an illustration of issues relevant to the three areas of critical understanding. The third section of the article offers suggestions of best practices for community college leaders. These include getting to know members of the LGBT community, examining the language and symbols used on campus, setting examples as inclusive leaders, and employing a cooperative working spirit. (Contains 29 references and 3 figures.) (RDG)