Resilience Of Grassroots Leaders Involved in LGBT Issues at a Catholic University

This case study examined the sources of resilience utilized by staff and faculty grassroots leaders at a Jesuit, Catholic university addressing the LGBT campus climate. Interviews with 31 grassroots leaders uncovered how self-authorship helped participants reconcile tensions between Church teachings and LGBT concerns, self-efficacy to make a difference contributed to increased confidence, reliance on support networks countered feelings of isolation, and maintaining balance preserved psychological resources. Homophobia and heterosexism permeate college campuses (Rankin, Weber, Blumenfeld, & Frazer, 2010 Rankin, S. R., Weber, G., Blumenfeld, W., & Frazer, S. (2010). 2010 state of higher education for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Charlotte, NC: Campus Pride. [Google Scholar] ), so many faculty and student affairs professionals are involved in advocacy to address the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) climate (Messinger, 2011 Messinger, L. (2011). A qualitative analysis of faculty advocacy on LGBT issues on campus. Journal of Homosexuality, 58(9), 1281–1305. doi:10.1080/00918369.2011.605740 [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar] ). On religiously affiliated campuses, like Catholic universities, however, administrators often perceive LGBT advocacy to be in conflict with religious teachings regarding homosexuality and gender identity (Maher, 2003 Maher, M. J. (2003). Some background on addressing the topic of homosexuality in Catholic education. Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice, 6(4), 498–515. [Google Scholar] ; Wolff & Himes, 2010 Wolff, J. R., & Himes, H. L. (2010). Purposeful exclusion of sexual minority youth in Christian higher education: The implications of discrimination. Christian Higher Education, 9(5), 439–460. doi:10.1080/15363759.2010.513630 [Taylor & Francis Online], [Google Scholar] ) and act to suppress such efforts (Love, 1998 Love, P. G. (1998). Cultural barriers facing lesbian, gay, and bisexual students at a Catholic college. The Journal of Higher Education, 69(3), 298–323. doi:10.2307/2649190 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar] ; McEntarfer, 2011 McEntarfer, H. K. (2011). “Not going away”: Approaches used by students, faculty, and staff members to create gay–straight alliances at three religiously affiliated universities. Journal of LGBT Youth, 8(4), 309–331. doi:10.1080/19361653.2011.607623 [Taylor & Francis Online], [Google Scholar] ). When faced with protracted resistance, faculty and staff can find LGBT advocacy on these campuses to be incredibly frustrating, which may escalate into psychological burnout (Howard-Hamilton, Palmer, Johnson, & Kicklighter, 1998 Howard-Hamilton, M. F., Palmer, C., Johnson, S., & Kicklighter, M. (1998). Burnout and related factors: Differences between women and men in student affairs. College Student Affairs Journal, 17(2), 80–91. [Google Scholar] ). To counter these feelings of frustration, staff and faculty LGBT advocates rely on their sense of resilience (Kezar & Lester, 2011 Kezar, A. J., & Lester, J. (2011). Enhancing campus capacity for leadership: An examination of grassroots leaders in higher education. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. [Crossref], [Google Scholar] ) or their ability to cope with and adapt to adversity (Robertson & Cooper, 2013 Robertson, I., & Cooper, C. L. (2013). Resilience. Stress and Health, 29(3), 175–176. doi:10.1002/smi.2512 [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar] ; Seery, 2011 Seery, M. D. (2011). Resilience: A silver lining to experiencing adverse life events? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(6), 390–394. doi:10.1177/0963721411424740 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar] ). People develop resilience through extrinsic and intrinsic protective factors or sources of resilience that provide them the psychological resources needed to cope with adversity (Kezar & Lester, 2011 Kezar, A. J., & Lester, J. (2011). Enhancing campus capacity for leadership: An examination of grassroots leaders in higher education. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. [Crossref], [Google Scholar] ; Yonezawa, Jones, & Singer, 2011 Yonezawa, S., Jones, M., & Singer, N. R. (2011). Teacher resilience in urban schools: The importance of technical knowledge, professional community, and leadership opportunities. Urban Education, 46(5), 913–931. doi:10.1177/0042085911400341 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar] ). Identifying sources of resilience may seem somewhat intuitive, but resilience is a process that is both an innate psychological characteristic and an ability that can be developed (Robertson & Cooper, 2013 Robertson, I., & Cooper, C. L. (2013). Resilience. Stress and Health, 29(3), 175–176. doi:10.1002/smi.2512 [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar] ). Very little research has explored the role of resilience in LGBT advocacy at religiously affiliated colleges and universities, let alone broader campus activism and grassroots leadership in general. The purpose of this study then is to examine the various sources of resilience on which faculty and staff at a Jesuit, Catholic university rely to sustain their commitment to LGBT advocacy. I generally use “LGBT” throughout this article to refer to gender and sexual minority communities, as this version of the abbreviation was most commonly used at my study site, although I do acknowledge this abbreviation is not fully inclusive of the range of identities along gender and sexuality spectra. I make exceptions when referring to study participants, where I use lesbian, gay, bisexual, questioning (LGBQ) as the sample included no transgender participants, and in references to prior literature, I use the abbreviation employed by the authors of those studies.

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