Under new SP2 dean, a focus on LGBTQ issues

When new School of Social Policy & Practice Dean John Jackson started leading SP2 this semester, he wanted to make big changes.

Increase interactions with the community. Reimagine the school’s curriculum. Develop SP2 into a leader on campus for LGBTQ issues.

Now, a month after a summit on the state of LGBTQ issues at SP2, the school is on track to become a safer home for LGBTQ students and students interested in LGBTQ issues.

“We are trying to be a leader on campus,” Jackson said.

To build its LGBTQ presence on campus and in Philadelphia, the school established a task force to examine how to address issues facing LGBTQ students. SP2 also created a first-of-its-kind course about LGBTQ issues, established a research fund for junior faculty to study LGBTQ issues and has actively been educating professors about how to address LGBTQ student issues in appropriate ways, such as explaining the importance of using correct gender pronouns.

In guest lecturer Allan Irving’s new course — “LGBTQ Communities and Social Policy” — students will study the development of social policy in the context of LGBTQ social movements, examining topics such as HIV/AIDS, the Defense of Marriage Act and same-sex marriage.

Studying LGBTQ issues is extremely important, Irving said, and in his former spring course he would always teach about LGBTQ issues for three to four weeks. “Now, this is going to be a full course dedicated to the issues,” Irving said.

Questions of social justice will be threaded throughout the course, as will social work advocacy and coalition building. But the syllabus will only be a launching point — the direction of this class is really going to matter on the students who take it.

While Irving has been incorporating content like this into his teaching for years, it was under Jackson’s deanship that he was finally able to find a place to fit this class in.

The push for an increased focus on LGBTQ issues, Jackson said, has been part of his strategy to encourage faculty and students to think critically about how to re-imagine issues to change them for the better.

Queer SP2, a graduate student group, has been one of the largest groups to grow Jackson’s vision.

Before Queer SP2 co-presidents Savannah Knell and Kris Smith started their studies at SP2, the club used to be disorganized. But now, QSP2 — an organization less than 10 years old — has made it their goal to raise awareness of their group and represent the LGBTQ Community in SP2.

“We’ve been pushing for a change in QSP2,” Smith said.

Before this year, QSP2 wasn’t seen as extremely successful or popular, Knell said. Most of SP2’s students are only with the school for one or two years, and during that time they are expected to spend a lot of their time outside the school, doing work in the field.

Now, QSP2 members are looking to come together in a place that is theirs to talk about the things they have in common, and are looking to build on the work of the task force on LGBTQ issues to increase students’ knowledge about these issues.

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