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Cornell University

Student & Campus Life

Identity-based offices unite under new name to offer greater student support

Staff members pose together outdoors.
Staff members of the Centers for Student Equity, Empowerment and Belonging pose in front of office at 626 Thurston Ave.

During her first semester at Cornell, amidst the pandemic, Logan Gibbs-Porter ’25 found it challenging to connect with people who shared similar life experiences as a Black, queer, genderfluid person. However, things changed when she came across Haven, The LGBTQ Student Union."Without Haven, I feel like I would have had a very lonely experience,” Gibbs-Porter said. “I've always cared for community - that was always a core value of mine - but I realized I have a talent for it and it's something that I need in my daily life."

The Haven student organization is advised and supported by staff at the LGBT Resource Center, one of the seven offices within the newly established Centers for Student Equity, Empowerment, and Belonging. The group of affinity and identity-based organizations, overseen by the Office of the Dean of Students, officially came together under the new name this summer. 

The new name is meant to strengthen connections for students navigating the offices and the groups they work with, and emphasize the intersections of students' varied identities.

Read the full story on the Cornell Chronicle.