LGBTQ+ CONNECTIONS AND RESOURCES

Throughout your career, creating and building your network will be important to your advancement and success within your field. Below are a variety of LGBTQ+ and diversity-related resources that may be helpful to you as you build your support system as a URI student.

URI Resources & Links:

  • Office of Community, Equity & Diversity: The Office of Community, Equity and Diversity strives to create a diverse, equitable, and inclusive University in which every individual can learn, work, and thrive.
  • URI Gender and Sexuality Center: The Gender and Sexuality Center prides itself on providing Education, Engagement, and Support for the URI campus community and beyond.
  • Careers for the Common Good Education Panel: Hear from URI employer partners that share their commitments to diverse hiring practices
  • Out and Proud at URI: Out and Proud at URI promotes the visibility of URI’s LGBTQ and Allied Faculty and Staff, and encourages mentoring, awareness, and networking. Our goal is to increase our sense of community and to let our LGBTQ students, staff and faculty know that they are well supported and not alone here at URI.
  • URI Department of Gender and Women’s Studies: Study Gender and Women’s Studies at URI and transform the way you think about yourself, others, and the world. Consider how gender intersects with race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and other characteristics to share our lives.

Additional Links & Resources by Topic:

LinkedIn is a professional social media platform that allows you to identify and connect with people, companies, and groups to build your professional community. Consider requesting informational interviews with contacts you identify through to build your relationship with your LinkedIn connections. 

The LinkedIn Alumni Finder Tool is a great resource that can help you find URI alumni anywhere in the world! You can search for alumni based on your interests and career goals.

FINDING A MENTOR

The value of a good mentor is priceless. A Management Mentors survey found that 80% of the CEOs it polled had mentors and they attributed their access to insider knowledge, power, and fast-tracked careers to having mentors. The links below teach you how to find and build a relationship with a great mentor of your own. Try to find a mentor that you can connect with about making the transition from college to the professional world, working in a specific job or industry, or navigating the workplace as a LGBTQ+ professional.

As a LGBTQ+ individual and employee, your identities bring unique assets and strengths into the workplace. Consider the qualities or skills you’ve developed from challenges that you’ve overcome or nuanced understanding you’ve gained by nature of your identity. Some unique concerns that LGBTQ+ have conveyed include:

  • being the only or one of a few LGBTQ+ person(s) in a workplace
  • often having to cover or downplay aspects of their authentic selves (e.g., by hiding personal relationships or changing the way they dress or speak) in order to avoid discrimination (includes code switching, which is shifting the language they use or the way they express themselves in conversations)
  • facing the threat of discrimination against in the workplace without legal protection (LGBTQ+ identities are not protected classes under federal law in the same way race, sex, religion, national origin, age, and disability are – to learn more about states and their anti-discrimination policies, visit the State Equality Index) 
  • encountering lack of respect by being addressed by non preferred pronouns and/or not being able to access restrooms that are consistent with their gender identities
  • learning how to deal with unconscious bias and stereotyping (implicit bias) throughout their career journeys
  • enduring workplace harassment and possible feelings of being unsafe in the workplace

Click here for more information

We (CCEE Career Education Specialists) will work individually with you to help you unpack, identify, and explore your career interests, values, goals, and workplace experiences. If you have questions and would like to connect with a career professional about LGBTQ+ content specifically, contact Lisa Kuosmanen. We also encourage you to connect with people in your emerging professional community, including networking contacts and mentors, about these considerations.