The Queer Graduate Co-op (a.k.a. "Queergrads") is the first university wide student organization for queer graduate students. We work to provide educational events and social activities of interest to the vast population of lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender people at Columbia's sixteen graduate schools, affiliated colleges, and seminaries:
Queergrads events and activities are open to all members of the Columbia community including, but not limited to, graduate students, undergraduate students, facutly, staff, and other employees. Spouses, partners, friends and supporters of our members are welcome as well.
Queergrads is devoted to bringing queer graduate students together to create a more unified presence in the Columbia community. At such a large university, social fragmentation and personal isolation occur too easily. All Queergrads events and socials aim to bring our community together, to provide contact with one another, and to foster lasting relationships.
Queergrads is managed by a steering committee comprised of representatives from those graduate schools which have their own queer student groups housed in them. Currently, the represented schools are TC, SIPA, Business, Law, COPS, SW, and UTS. Queergrads then also serves as an umbrella group for students in any unrepresented schools. In addition, the Queer Studies Group (QSG) is an extracurricular study group that has its own support through the Institute for Women and Gender Studies. But, it is also a "member organization" of Queergrads, just as are the groups from TC, SIPA, Law, etc. The final function of the Co-op is to keep each member organization informed of what each other group has planned.