A new national index of colleges will measure and compare how “gay friendly” participating campuses are, according to Susan Rankin, a researcher at Pennsylvania State University who gave a preview of the project today at the joint conference of the American College Personnel Association and Naspa — Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.

Starting May 15, colleges and universities will be invited to complete a 50-item questionnaire about their policies and programming for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students. Participating institutions will receive a confidential report card rating their “gay point average” in areas such as student life, academics, housing, and campus safety. Institutions that receive poor scores will also receive information on effective practices for making their campus climate more inclusive for LGBT students.

Campus Pride, the nonprofit organization that developed the project, hopes that the index will become a benchmarking tool for colleges and a resource for high-school students seeking LGBT-friendly colleges and universities. Information collected from the surveys will be made available in September on the project’s Web site.

Prospective students will be able to view participating institutions’ profiles and LGBT-index scores; look for LGBT-friendly campuses by region and size; and signal their interest in an institution directly through the Web site. —Paula Wasley