When khristian kemp-delisser became director of the LGBT Resource Center last spring, they knew that Syracuse University had room to improve how it reflected diversity in gender identities.

As of earlier this month, SU students can now indicate their pronouns on their MySlice profile. The service was developed by the university’s Pronoun, Gender and Preferred Name Advisory Council to allow gender-nonconforming students to identify themselves more accurately and feel more included on campus, kemp-delisser said.

As the assistant dean and director of LGBTQ initiatives at Colgate University, kemp-delisser oversaw the creation of a feature that allowed people to specify their pronouns across different platforms. The feature helped to increase the visibility of gender on campus, and its success inspired kemp-delisser to introduce a similar service at SU.

“I want every student to feel like they are seen and heard from,” they said.

In addition to kemp-delisser’s experience, the pronoun feature was based on a 2016 directive from Chancellor Kent Syverud’s Workgroup on Diversity and Inclusion. kemp-delisser serves as co-chair of the pronoun advisory council. They also compared SU’s practices to recommendations by the Campus Pride Index, an online tool that provides information about the experiences of LGBTQ students.

The feature expands on MySlice’s preferred name option, introduced in 2017. That option enables students to identify themselves by a name that differs from the one on their official records.

Pronouns are equally important in terms of an individual’s identity as their name, kemp-delisser said. Giving students the option to indicate their pronouns was a necessary addition for true inclusivity, they said.

The council asked for student input while creating the pronoun feature, said Aley O’Mara, a doctoral student and council member. Many gender-nonconforming students were frustrated by the need to constantly restate their pronouns in academic settings, they said.

“Now, people can be called what they want to be called — by their name — and have their pronouns front and center, ideally, to cut down on some of that emotional labor of having to introduce themselves over and over and over again,” O’Mara said.

Pronouns currently only appear on MySlice, but the council plans to expand the feature to connected platforms such as Blackboard, said Jenny Gluck, associate chief information officer for academic services and co-chair of the advisory council.

The council hopes to work with Information Technology Services to create a system for students to indicate which websites they want their pronouns shared on. Doing so will help to prevent students from having their gender identity revealed to certain people without their permission, she said.

“We want to be very careful about how we use this information,” Gluck said. “We don’t want to inadvertently make a student’s life worse.”

ITS worked with the council to develop the MySlice pronoun feature.

The LGBT Resource Center is holding a series of Pronoun Competency Workshops on the pronoun feature and the importance of pronouns in an individual’s identity, O’Mara said. The workshops aim to create a more informed and accepting campus, they said, as well as to interest faculty and staff in including pronouns across systems at SU.

The inclusion of pronouns in student demographic information will improve the Resource Center’s ability to assess the needs of the SU community, kemp-delisser said. It will make it easier for the center to gauge what resources are most needed and which initiatives are worth promoting.

The pronoun feature is still in its early stages, but it has the potential to build a community at SU that is welcoming and inclusive for students of all gender identities, O’Mara said.

“The way I look at it is if you can change the system, you can change the people in the system,” they said. “You can create more opportunities for allyship and demonstrations of advocacy campus.”

Published on October 30, 2019 at 9:16 pm

Contact Gillian: gifollet@syr.edu