Student clubs for gay and transgender students have become commonplace at Utah's colleges and universities. But the University of Utah is believed to be the first in the state to have such a club specifically for business students.

Marc Stillman and J.J. Oliver, two gay students working on their MBAs at the U.'s David Eccles School of Business, have founded the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Students and Allies in Business, also known as GLBT Alliance. Such clubs already exist at business schools at Stanford, Columbia and elsewhere.

"We hope to be a catalyst to help businesses in the state to create vibrant work environments that will be magnets for diversity," Oliver said in a statement. Many job candidates now look to the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, which rates companies on their treatment of GLBT employees, to judge an employer's workplace climate, Oliver noted.

The new club, which has about a dozen members, including many straight students, hopes to boost awareness of academic and professional issues faced by GLBT students and professionals. Some employers offer health insurance benefits to employees' same-sex partners and some don't. Nine Utah cities and counties, including Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, have adopted ordinances that make it illegal to fire someone for being gay or transgender, but those protections are not offered statewide.

"We know that fair treatment for gay and transgender employees is key to overall respect for diversity in the workplace," Brandie Balken, executive director of Equality Utah, said in an interview. "For the school of business to endorse inclusion of all employees makes sense."

The GLBT Alliance wants to host networking events to connect undergraduate and graduate students with Utah employers. In October, members of the group attended the 2010 Reaching Out MBA Conference in Los Angeles. This month, the alliance held a forum on the experiences of GLBT employees and managers in a variety of workplace situations.

"We want to be known as a place that can be an excellent educational home for people from all backgrounds," said Scott Schaefer, associate dean of the David Eccles business school. "We want people to know that if you're GLBT, we'd love to have you at our school. If you're LDS, we'd love to have you at our school."

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Get involved

O For more information about the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Students and Allies in Business, send ane-mail gaymbautah@gmail.com.