Welcome to the Spectrum Center Community Education Canvas!

Interested in expanding your knowledge about gender, sexuality, and LGBTQIA2S+ identities? Want to increase your skills to create an LGBTQIA2S+ affirming and inclusive culture?

The Spectrum Center offers education and training for U-M students, staff, and faculty through providing workshops, consultation, and online learning opportunities.

Welcome to this Canvas site where we offer our Introduction to LGBTQIA2S+ Communities and Identities webcourse. We've created this webcourse to be accessible, relevant, and immediately useful. This webcourse is a foundational resource for your learning journey about gender, sexuality, and LGBTQIA2S+ identities.

Our Educational Philosophy

Our team believes in the significant role education and training has in supporting movement towards co-creating a just, equitable, and inclusive community for LGBTQIA2S+ people. With this in mind our approach to educational work is as follows:

- - Create cutting-edge curriculum: Our approach to curriculum development and facilitator training is interdisciplinary, intersectional, and adaptive. We dedicate ourselves to remaining up-to-date on the latest LGBTQIA2S+ research, theories, and best practices, as we recognize that knowledge evolves quickly.
  - Develop actionable allyship: We firmly believe that everyone has a part in supporting LGBTQIA2S+ equity work. We guide workshop participants to begin or continue on a lifelong journey of learning, unlearning, and enacting change.
  - Build capacity for structural change: Through our workshops, webcourses, and consultation services, we share core strategies with our U-M community for building inclusive teams, departments, and classrooms. We aim to equip folks with foundational and innovative skills to complement or expand upon their DEI initiatives.
  - Support LGBTQIA2S+ thriving: Our ultimate goal is to contribute to a culture in which queer and trans individuals can live authentically, achieve their dreams, and experience community. We center the lived experience of LGBTQIA2S+ individuals by acknowledging the diversity of race, ethnicity, dis/ability, socioeconomic status, religion, size, citizenship, age, gender, and sexual identity present in our community.

Course Navigation

About the Spectrum Center

Additional LGBTQIA2S+ Learning Resources

About the Webcourse - Introduction to LGBTQIA2S+ Communities and Identities

Begin the Webcourse