Jordon Constantino ’22, who identifies as transgender, now has a student ID that matches his preferred name after two years of being identified by a name that no longer belonged to him.
“My Hawk Card is huge,” said Constantino, referring to his student ID. “That’s something [I use] everyday that nobody really thought about.”
St. Joe’s students, faculty and staff are now able to select their chosen name, gender identification and gender pronouns to be displayed across most official university systems, according to a Jan. 19 university announcement.
Constantino said having his preferred name displayed across multiple interfaces alleviates anxiety that is brought on by every new semester.
“The fact that it’s showing up in the directory is also huge, in terms of emailing my professors my preferred name,” Constantino said. “Here’s the professor who has all the power to say no to my identity. Going forward, having it reflected and be in the directory and then not having to go through that at all is great. That’s a really big deal to have the possibility of denial of my identity kind of removed.”
A student’s preferred name will appear on class rosters, The Nest, Canvas, some Residential Life information and diplomas. However, a student’s legal name is required to be on billing information, tax documents, official transcripts, National Student Clearinghouse information and payroll information. Community members are not charged for new IDs with their preferred names.
Chris Heasley, Ed.D., head of the Transgender Inclusion Working Group, has been working with the Office of the Registrar, the Office of Inclusion and Diversity, the Office of Human Resources and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) for the past year and a half to implement preferred name guidelines.
“The reason it’s been complicated is because the university has multiple platforms and software systems that it uses,” Heasley said. “It’s not all just housed in one center, central software. There’s been a need to trace every place where these different social identities exist.”
Amanda Sciarra, director of application services for OIT, said the university purchased an integration platform to manage different social identities across systems.
“That is the mechanism that is allowing us to now pass it to other systems in a coordinated way,” Sciarra said. “The more systems that we move into our integration platform, the more we’re able to propagate where appropriate. There are some systems where the legal name is required, but everywhere we can [use preferred names] we do that.”
Students, faculty and staff can update their chosen name by logging into The Nest and accessing the School Services tab. Users should then locate the Administrative Services menu on the right hand side, click the Personal Information menu to expand it and click the General Profile link. Next, users should select Personal Information on the menu button. In the Personal Details box, users can click the blue Edit button and will be able to input their preferred name.
These technological modifications are vitally important to creating a safe and comfortable community at St. Joe’s, according to Heasley.
“It reinforces our commitment to allow our members to be their authentic selves, express this social identity in a way that best represents who they are and where they want to be in the community,” Heasley said.
Constantino said he was included in some discussions with the Transgender Inclusion Working Group about the implementation of the preferred name guidelines.
“It was good that they were including somebody who actually knew what it felt like to be having this issue,” Constantino said. “At the same time, it’s a little bit frustrating
just because as a student, and just like only being somebody putting my thoughts in there, I couldn’t have as much control and power and influence as I wanted to.”
Nicole Stokes, Ph.D., associate provost for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), was also involved in the implementation of the guidelines.
“It is so critical to our values of seeing God in all things and valuing the whole person,” Stokes said. “And identity is valuing the whole person.”
St. Joe’s is one of seven Jesuit colleges and universities that have similar preferred name guidelines, according to Stokes. There are 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the U.S.
According to Campus Pride, a nonprofit that supports the rights of LGBTQIA+ college students, about 262 colleges and universities nationwide enable students to use a chosen first name on campus records and documents.
Heasley said the next step is modifying St. Joe’s StarRez Housing program, a third party housing accommodation automation software. Right now, preferred names must be manually entered into the system as they do not automatically populate the system through The Nest.
“That’s an outdated system, so we’re going to have to work with StarRez headquarters in Denver with their project management team to make those changes,” Heasley said.
Sciarra said she is working on modifying the system as soon as possible.
“I just hope students know that this was a really great start. We’re not done,” Sciarra said. “As new systems get brought into the technological platform, or landscape, that exists at St. Joe’s, it’s going to start there. There’s no conversion. It’s always going to be inherently there from the jump.”
Kaylah Hernandez ’23 contributed to this story.
