A round-up of national LGBT and progressive news, including...

• Campus Pride 'Top 12' Voice & Action leader nets State Dept. internships
• UNC chancellor rejects gender-neutral housing option
• SUNY Fredonia embarks on campus climate assessment
• Survey finds college freshmen more liberal
• Georgia's oldest HBCU gets first LGBT student group
• Canada's first fraternity for gay and bi men

Campus Pride 'Top 12' Voice & Action leader nets State Dept. internship

Greensboro College student Matthew Troy has accepted an internship for the summer of 2012 with the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. While there, he plans to work with U.S. groups that advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to help those groups expand internationally.

Troy also was offered an internship in the Office of the Secretary, but he chose the Bureau internship instead because he felt that position would let him do "more substantive work on projects and less 'busy work' to accommodate the executives."

In January, Troy, a junior from Mason, Ohio, was also named one of the Top 12 Student Leaders in Action by Campus Pride. He received that honor for guiding a group of students through the process of establishing Greensboro College's Gay-Straight Alliance. That process involved seeking the approval of officials not only at the college but also in the United Methodist Church. He also worked with students at other Greensboro-area campuses on assessing conditions for LGBT students.

He also was recognized on the basis of his scholarship and general campus service. He has a 3.8 grade-point average while double-majoring in mathematics and political science, with minors in humanities, ethics, and women's and gender studies. He has served as a residence advisor; leader of the student community supervisors for Village 401, the campus's main service organization; president of the student honors organization; Executive Treasurer of Student Government; and a member of Pride Productions, the college's campus-activities board. He designed a "get connected" program in which new students at Greensboro College fill out a survey and are contacted to get involved with student organizations immediately. He also recently redesigned the Student Government Association to expand from five to 29 leadership positions, covering every aspect of the college.

A member of the men's tennis team, he represents the student body on the Board of Trustees. As the college's representative on the N.C. Campus Compact Student Advisory Board, he led a team that made a presentation at the state conference, and a 15-page guide that he developed was sent out to more than 30 student leaders in North Carolina. He also is a student ambassador and fund raiser for the national anti-hunger organization Share our Strength.

In the summer of 2011, Troy worked as an intern at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where he redesigned a leadership course for the Chief of National Training that is now a mandatory course for all FEMA supervisors.

-- compiled from release

Read more headlines and news after the jump...

UNC chancellor rejects gender-neutral housing option

Holden Thorp, chancellor of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, rejected a proposal on Feb. 7 that would have established a gender-neutral housing option for students living on campus, according to a report from The Daily Tar Heel.

Thorp made his decision known in a memo to UNC Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Winston Crips.

“While there has been a great deal of discussion about the proposal on campus, my concern is that we haven’t adequately explained it to our many stakeholders off campus,” Thorp wrote.

The Daily Tar Heel's editorial board had previously come out in favor of the gender-neutral housing proposal.

"When Chancellor Holden Thorp decides whether he’ll approve gender-nonspecific housing, he should consider the ways in which it will benefit both the LGBT community and the larger student population," the student editorial board wrote. "To maintain its position as the flagship school in the UNC system, the University must demonstrate a commitment to progressive policies — and a willingness to be an early adopter of these policies. ... A growing consensus across higher education supports moving to gender-nonspecific housing, and UNC should take heed. Though it may not be the very first, it should take care not to be the last."

According to the paper, 32 public colleges and 66 private colleges, including North Carolina's Duke University and Guilford College, already offer gender-neutral housing programs.

SUNY Fredonia embarks on campus climate assessment

Funds totaling $10,000 have been secured at SUNY Fredonia to support a Reaping the Harvest of Reaching OUT to SUNY initiative whose goal is to promote diversity in LGBTQ issues on campus and, by extension, elsewhere in the SUNY system.

The appropriation succeeds a $10,000 Reach OUT to SUNY grant awarded last year to SUNY Fredonia by what is now known as the SUNY Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Anchor funding was provided by a donor through University Advancement and was matched by the Office of Academic Affairs at SUNY Fredonia.

“This grant was written using the first one as a context -- like a stepping stone -- to the second grant, so there’re connected,” said Amy Cuhel-Schuckers, grants development specialist with the Office of Sponsored Programs.

Creating and sharing a model that provides for the holistic integration of LGBTQ issues in the academic culture of SUNY Fredonia and the entire SUNY system was a focus of the original one-year grant. A campus climate survey, webinar series and two-day conference were supported by the initial grant.

Elements that serve as extensions of last year’s activities will be supported by the new funding, with the goal of helping to institutionalize those elements. Five activities have been identified in the new funding cycle. They are: analysis and dissemination of last year’s climate survey findings; website design and development and compilation and dissemination of LGBTQ resources; development of webinars in the spring and fall terms of 2012; Campus Pride index requisite data gathering in spring 2012 and Campus Pride registration in fall 2012; and completion of the development process for Safe Zone training in spring 2012 and scheduling initial Safe Zone training in fall 2012.

-- compiled from release

Survey finds college freshmen more liberal

A survey by the University of California, Los Angeles, has found that new freshmen entering college in 2011 are more liberal on a variety of social issues, including same-sex marriage, abortion and the legalization of marijuana.

The survey, "The American Freshman," asked more than 200,000 freshmen about their education, political thoughts and goals for their career.

Seventy-one percent of the respondents said they supported extending marriage rights to same-sex couples.

Read more from The Daily Nebraskan...

Georgia's oldest HBCU gets first LGBT student group

Savannah State University, Georgia's oldest historically black college/university (HBCU), is welcoming onto campus its first LGBT student organization.

Tiger's Roar, Savannah State's student newspaper, reports that the group started in mid-October 2011. Today, it has a strong membership of 25 students. The group holds meetings twice per month.

Read more at Tiger's Roar...

Canada's first fraternity for gay and bi men

As Georgia's Savannah State welcomes its first LGBT student organization, gay and bi men at one school in Canada are welcoming the introduction of Delta Lambda Phi, a U.S.-based fraternity for gay and bisexual men and their allies.

Xtra! reports that the fraternity is being formed at Montreal's McGill University. The fraternity's U.S. national directors and New York City chapter mentors will officiate at the Montreal fraternity's charter and initiation ceremonies.