The LGBTQ+ Center

The center was formed in 2021 due to the efforts and advocacy of faculty, alumni, administrators, and staff, including the Chief Diversity Officer, the Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Vice Provost for Global Programs, the Director of the Academic Center for Equity and Inclusion, and a faculty member in the Department of English.

Many people had been working separately and together on LGBTQIA+ issues at St. John’s. They worked with SPECTRUM, the student-led group on the Queens and Staten Island, NY, campuses, as well as other students, faculty, and employees, on issues related to bathrooms, housing, and counseling. They also collaborated with the Office of Human Resources on issues related to employees.  

Candice D. Roberts, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Division of Mass Communication, and Shanté Paradigm Smalls, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Black Studies, and Faculty, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, decided that a comprehensive approach to drastically improve the lives and experiences of LGBTQIA+ members of the St. John’s community was needed. They formed a small task force and began inviting undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, administrators, and staff to join in collaborating on policies and projects to fully integrate LGBTQIA+ community members into University life. From that work came the climate report from the Transgender Training Institute, which helped to galvanize and orient our work at St. John’s University across campuses. 

In the Spring of 2021, they proposed to Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P., President, and former Chief Diversity Officer Nada Llewellyn, Esq., the idea of a resourced and staffed LGBTQ+ center at St. John’s University. 

Candice D. Roberts, Ph.D. (they/them) | Associate Professor, Division of Mass Communication 

Dr. Roberts earned a Ph.D. in Communication, Culture, and Media from Drexel University. Broadly their work examines cultural narrative and identity in popular media and consumer culture, and they use critical queer theory to interrogate archetypes, sociality, and themes of class, sexuality, and space/place. Recent publications include articles in the Journal for Cultural Research and in Film, Fashion & Consumption and an edited volume entitled Consumer Identities: Agency, Media and Digital Culture.

Shanté Paradigm Smalls, Ph.D. (they/them) | Associate Professor, Black Studies, Faculty: Critical Race & Ethnic Studies

Shanté Paradigm Smalls is a scholar, artist, and writer. Smalls’s teaching and research focuses on Black popular culture in music, film, visual art, genre fiction, and other aesthetic forms. Dr. Smalls’ first book, Hip Hop Heresies: Queer Aesthetics in New York City (June 2022, NYU Press), which won the 2016 CLAGS Fellowship Award for best manuscript in LGBTQ Studies, will be published in June.

Hip Hop Heresies is the first of its kind—placing queerness, hip hop, and black aesthetics in conversation with one another to argue that New York City hip hop cultural production from the 1970s to the mid-2010s inherently employs “queer articulations” of race, gender, and sexuality.

Deana Leonce, Coordinator for Resource Centers

Meredith Allen, Graduate Assistant

Alex Coger-Bonet, Graduate Assistant

Irene Barlis, Student Worker

Office Location: St. John Hall 216 (Gender Neutral Restroom Available)
Office Hours (check Instagram for weekly office hour updates): Mondays: 12 p.m.–6 p.m. | Tuesdays: 12 p.m.–6 p.m | Wednesdays: 9 a.m.–4 p.m. | Thursdays: 10 a.m.–4 p.m. | Fridays: 9 a.m.– 3 p.m.
Email: [email protected]
Tel 718-990-3720

Lavender Graduation Ceremony

Wednesday, May 17 | 4–7 p.m.

DAC 416 (Ballroom) | Queens Campus

Register Here

Celebrating our LGBQ+ graduating students (undergrad and grad) from the class of 2023.

WORKSHOP SERIES

“Queer Vibes Only: Reimagining Pedagogy, Visibility, and Activism in Queer-Inclusive Courses”
Academic Center for Equity & Inclusion (ACEI)

Session 1: “The ABCs of LGBTQ+ Inclusion: Pedagogy, Act Up”  
Wednesday, October 12, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., brown-bag lunch. Register for Session 1!

Session 2: “Don’t Let Your Inner Saboteur Get in Your Way: from How We Teach to Shaping an Out-Loud Syllabus”  
Wednesday, November 2, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., brown-bag lunch. Register for Session 2!

Employee Happy Hours

Tuesday, April 25 | 4–6 p.m.

St. John Hall 216| Queens Campus

Register Here

Join us for some snacks, cocktails, and a well-deserved break in the LGBQ+ center! Network, relax and get to know the center in St. John Hall 216. Open to all St. John's employees. 

Spirituality & Identity

Thursday, February 23 | 5–7 p.m.

Inclusivity Resource Center, Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall | Queens Campus

Register Here

Join us at a special workshop where we center spirituality, Blackness, queerness, and tarot.

Dreaming of a Better Future with the Ali Forney Center–A Community Service Event

Monday, February 6 | 1:50 p.m.–3:15 p.m.

Inclusivity Resource Center, Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall | Queens Campus

Register Here

“Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.”—Rev. Martin Luther King. Jr.

The Office of Multicultural Affairs is committed to upholding the Vincentian mission of St. John’s University. Join us for an afternoon as we prepare care packages filled with essential supplies for homeless LGBTQ+ youth in need in the New York City area. All care packages will be donated and distributed by the Ali Forney Center. 

Book Launch!

Monday, November 7, 6:30 p.m. via Zoom

Join the conversation and learn about Hip Hop Heresies: Queer Aesthetics in New York City with Shanté Smalls, Ph.D. (St. Johns University) and Lauron Kehrer, Ph.D. (Western Michigan
University).

Sponsored by the LGBTQ+ Center, Office of Multicultural Affairs, St. John's College Department of English, and the Institute for Critical Race and Ethnic Studies.

Download a Book Launch flyer!

Queer Vibes Only: Reimagining Pedagogy, Visibility, & Activism in Queer Inclusive Courses

Co-Facilitated by Dr. Danielle Bacibianco and Dr. Lisa Robinson

The ABCs of LGBTQ+ Inclusion: Pedagogy, Act Up

Wednesday, October 12: 10 a.m.-1 p.m. in-person or online, Register here!

Don’t Let Your Inner Saboteur Get In Your Way: From How We Teach to Shaping an Out-Loud Syllabus

Wednesday, November 2: 10 a.m.-1 p.m., in-person or online, Register here!

Download our Queer Vibes Only Flyer!

October is LGBTQ+ History Month

Oct 11: National Coming Out Day
Oct 19: Spirit Day
Oct 26: Intersex Awareness Day
Last week of October: Asexual Awareness Week

LGBTQ+ Center Open House

Friday, September 30, 12–2 p.m., drop in!

Come to St. John Hall, Room 216 to see the newly minted Center. Mingle, chat, snack. Masks required.

Download and share our Open House Flyer!

LGBTQ+ Research Jam

April 20, 2022
St. Augustine Hall, 2-145 (2nd Floor), Queens Campus
12 noon-3 p.m., in person

Please join us for our first ever research jam! If you are working on research related to sexuality, gender, identity, community, culture, or other LGBTQ+ studies areas— jam with us! Bring your ideas at any stage for interaction, feedback, and collaborative opportunities. All disciplines and faculty, staff, and students welcome. This is an in-person event and food and drinks will be served. Please register with the link in our linktree or the QR code on the flyer.

Safe Zone Level 1 Training 

The Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) is offering a re-vamped and completely new Safe Zone Level 1 training. Thursday, March 10, 5-7pm in the Inclusivity Resource Center. 

For questions about Safe Zone, please reach out to Kerlin Morales, Graduate Assistant For Student Equity Workshops.

RSVP for Safe Zone Training on March 10.

The LGBTQ+ Center Presents

No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics
documentary screening + Q &A with Director Vivian Kleiman
March 17, 2022 @ 5p EST
D'Angelo Center, Room 206 
In-Person or Virtual Attendance information available below

No Straight Lines tells the story of five scrappy and pioneering cartoonists who depicted everything from the AIDS crisis, coming out, and same-sex marriage, to themes of race, gender, and disability. They tackled the humor in queer lives in a changing world, and the everyday pursuits of love, sex, and community. Their work is funny, smart, and profound, and provides a unique, uncensored window into LGBTQ lives from the 1970s onward, beginning at a time in which there was no other genuine queer storytelling in popular culture. Equally engaging are their personal journeys, as they, against all odds, helped build a queer comics underground that has been able to grow and evolve in remarkable ways.

Please RSVP online. 

Virtual Attendance information and link provided upon RSVP confirmation.

For more information, contact Dr. Candice Roberts.

Download Event Flyer

The Power of a Line: LGBTQ+ Resource Center Book Talk by Dennis Tyler, Ph.D. 

Thursday, February 24, 2022

About Dennis Tyler, Ph.D.

Dennis Tyler, Ph.D., has published work on African American literature and culture, disability studies, performance studies, and popular culture, and his essays and reviews have appeared in African American Review, Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, Gender: Space, The Feminist Wire, Oxford Bibliographies, American Literary History Online Review, and elsewhere. His first book, Disabilities of Color, is forthcoming from New York University Press. 

His work has been recognized with grants and fellowships from the Ford Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and the University of Virginia’s Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies. He has taught courses on Oprah’s Book Club, African American autobiography, Black disability studies, Black women novelists, and the First Amendment right to protest.