Judy Jarvis, former director of Vassar College’s LGBTQ and Women’s Centers, began her work as the Director of the University's Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center on Jan. 18.
During her tenure at Vassar, Jarvis was responsible for organizing an LGBTQ oral history project and also worked with members of Vassar's Bias Incident Response Team to design and implement a campaign to educate students, faculty and staff on issues of identity, power and privilege.
Jarvis said that she is eager to create multiple points of entry for students within the Center through social events, lectures, academic engagements and collaborations with the different residential colleges.
“My goal is to work very collaboratively [with the Women’s Center and Fields Center] and really creatively to figure out all the ways to serve the Princeton LGBT community but also the straight Princeton community who certainly needs to learn more around issues of LGBTQ campus culture [and] campus life experiences,” she explained.
Jarvis noted that another part of her role includes making sure that transgender students feel comfortable on campus. She explained that there’s still a lot of work to be done across the country and at the University in examining the campus experience of transgender and gender non-conforming students.
"At Princeton I’m learning that while there are gender-neutral bathrooms and ways to put a preferred name in the systems, there are still some glitches,” Jarvis said.
She added that she is confident about moving forward on work to better support transgender students on campus to help them feel fully affirmed and a part of the University community.
“I think there are still opportunities for growth to enhance the campus climate for transgender students, faculty and staff,” LGBT Center Program Coordinator Andy Cofino said.
Jarvis said that she hopes to facilitate an LGBTQ oral history project similar to the one which she introduced at Vassar and that she wants to place a larger emphasis on graduate student LGBTQ programming.
“I’m really interested in working more with LGBTQ graduate students, including LGBTQ international graduate students. I’ve learned through my interview process that that’s sometimes a group that doesn’t feel as connected to the LGBTQ community,” Jarvis said.
Jarvis said she hopes that future LGBT-related programs and initiatives at the University, crafted using her experiences from Vassar and MIT and an increasing understanding of the University’s culture, will connect with students at the University.
Jarvis will work alongside Cofino as well as ten undergraduate student staffers, according to Cofino. Jarvis added that the Center hopes to hire two graduate students for the team. According to Jarvis, the University employs a greater number of staff members than other universities often do.
The position of director of the LGBT Center at the University has been vacant since Sept. 22, when Debra Bazarsky, who served as the Center’s founding director since 2005, left for the position of Manager of Diversity and Inclusion at the Office of Human Resources.
Deputy Dean of Undergraduate Students Tom Dunne described Jarvis as a creative and warm person with excellent listening skills.
“We felt that she was really equipped to take leadership over the Center," Dunne said.
He explained that while the Center has many great programs that it plans to continue, there is always room to explore new opportunities for growth. According to Dunne, having a new leader like Jarvis can help ensure that the Center continues to be dynamic and at the forefront of its field.
According to Dunne, the search process for the new director of the LGBT Center began when Bazarsky she transferred to her new role in Human Resources after she held her role as director through orientation in September. Then Dunne led members of the HR department, faculty and students in a four-month-long nationwide search process to look for a new director.
Dunne added that the reason the process took as long as it did was to accommodate interviews from the broad pool of candidates as well as to allow for the fact that the position was beginning in the middle of the school year, which had the potential to inconvenience candidates and the institutions they were working for at the time. I
In the interim period, Cofino stepped up and continued the Center’s growth, including hosting a talk by transgender actor Laverne Cox, one of the most high-profile event sponsored by the Center in the University history, Dunne explained.
He added that one of the most important aspects of the University’s LGBT Center is a commitment to intersectional work. As he learned from people at Vassar who spoke on her behalf during the search process, Jarvis was someone who prioritized this kind of work.
Bazarsky noted that Jarvis has a strong knowledge of LGBT students and LGBT issues in higher education and will therefore be a great addition to the Center.
“I think the students will find Judy to be a really great advocate and support person and director for them to access and go to. She’ll really be able to help lead the Center into the next decade,” Bazarsky said.
Jarvis, Bazarsky and Dunne all explained that the Center has been leading in the field of LGBT work for many years.
“I think most LGBT students experience Princeton to be a really open place to be students and to be out, but I think that we still have a ways to go," Bazarsky said.
Jarvis noted that support from a strong alumni base and having a centrally-located office within Frist Campus Center also contribute to the Center's strong framework that has allowed it to operate smoothly over the years since its founding.
She added that she looks forward to meeting as many new students as possible in the coming weeks.
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