The university is expanding the number of all-gender bathrooms available to students, faculty and staff and individuals and families who visit the CU Boulder campus.
Last summer, facilities management began updating signs in seven buildings outside a dozen single-stall bathrooms now providing all-gender facilities for individuals and families.
These additions bring to 237 the number of all-gender bathrooms on campus and are the outcome of a recommendation by the IDEA Council, which is prioritizing recommendations in the Inclusion, Diversity and Excellence in Academics (IDEA) Plan. The goal is to update signs for all single-stall bathrooms on campus.
“The campus culture is critical in determining whether or not students, staff and faculty from diverse backgrounds and perspectives choose to study, teach or work at CU Boulder,” said Teresa Hernández, diversity, equity and inclusion recruitment program manager with the Department of Human Resources and co-chair of the IDEA Council.
“For individuals who identify as LGBTQ+, bathrooms are a small but significant part of a larger issue around inclusion and belonging. Our hope is that our community will begin to see and feel that there is a commitment to shifting our campus to be more inclusive when and where possible,” Hernández added.
Council members who led the recommendation to expand all-gender bathrooms on campus include Regina Tirella, senior director of support and safety measures and deputy Title IX coordinator in the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance; Doreen Jokerst, chief of the CU Boulder Police Department; Pakou Cha, director of human resources in the Office of Advancement, and Bob Ferry, a professor of history and the immediate past chair of the Boulder Faculty Assembly.
“Transgender and gender nonconforming members of our community sometimes struggle to locate convenient and safe access to campus bathrooms,” Tirella said. “This project not only expands the number of inclusive bathrooms on campus, but clearly indicates through updated signs in buildings and via the campus map where they are located so people can find them.”
Students, faculty and staff can locate existing and newly reassigned all-gender bathrooms by searching the interactive campus map. Many of the redesignated bathrooms also comply with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements and are available to the public.
