Professorship Empowers Research Queer and Trans Students Can Count On

Jason C. Garvey is a justice-driven educator on a mission to create equitable education outcomes for queer and trans (QT) students, and particularly QT students of color. As the inaugural Sanford Friedman-Jerome Hipps Green and Gold Professor of Education, he regards higher education as an opportunity for the advancement and affirmation of QT students, and his research centers on the institutional responsibility to cultivate a more welcoming campus environment that sets these students up for success.

“I proudly identify as a quantitative queer,” says Garvey. “I love sitting at the border of rigorous quantitative methodology and liberation for trans and queer people.” Garvey’s work fills a void in national education research that largely excludes or misrepresents QT students. But beyond data collection, he seeks to demonstrate empirically to lawmakers and institutional policymakers how harmful policies have a negative impact on the success and livelihood of QT people.

Garvey says academic equity for QT students depends partially on their access to campus spaces where they can “build peer communities, get involved, build leadership and civic engagement skillsets, and benefit from mentorship from campus professionals or peers.” He’d also like to see more QT people in campus leadership positions, equity training for all campus professionals, and increased involvement of QT alumnx in order to create the enduring change, affirmation, and visibility by which QT students can reach their full potential.

Garvey shares a close bond with Sanford Friedman ’73 and Jerry Hipps, who established the Friedman-Hipps Professorship in 2020, and describes their meeting as “just serendipity, a match made in heaven.” He says the professorship has helped to bolster his own scholarly visibility. “I’m so grateful for them because, as a queer researcher, it’s a fight just to exist and be recognized in the Academe. I want to use this position to elevate queer and trans researchers, particularly scholars who are researching Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities who also identify as queer and trans. I want to demonstrate solidarity across communities to better serve marginalized students.”