USC was listed among this year’s top 25 LGBT friendly colleges and universities by Campus Pride, a nonprofit organization aimed at making colleges and universities safer and more inclusive spaces for LGBT students. Vigil’s work to continuously improve resources for LGBT students has not gone unnoticed. He added, chuckling, “Now, I am kind of an assessment nerd.” “The EdD program helped me to think about assessment of programs and services in order to be accountable to my stakeholders, the university and the students.” “The master’s program gave me the foundation in terms of creating a campus climate that’s inclusive for all students, and thinking about how we utilize student development theory in our work in Student Affairs,” he said. For example, one year his research revealed a lack of education about LGBT issues in the Greek community, so he created Greek Chat, a confidential discussion forum for fraternity and sorority members. Vigil uses the assessment tools that he learned in his graduate studies to initiate and improve programs through the center. He was named its first full-time director, a position he still holds today. In 2005, he used the research conducted in the PASA program to convince the university to establish an LGBT resource center. “At the time, the students here were trying to do everything themselves, providing support in confidential settings, putting on events, political advocacy, and I saw our center being a home for all of these.” “The students didn’t feel supported or safe, there was a lack of mentorship of LGBT student leaders, and student organizations were dying from one year to the next,” he recalled. However, he once again discovered a lack of cohesion among the LGBT student community. With financial support from the Lionel De Silva Endowed Scholarship, Vigil enrolled at USC Rossier and jumped right into student activities. “I knew that the program’s engaged faculty, commitment to urban issues and diversity, and opportunity for great mentorship would help Vincent be successful.” “Well before I was a faculty member at USC, I was always impressed by the PASA graduates I met,” said Tambascia, who is now coordinator for the program. She recommended that Vigil look into the Postsecondary Administration and Student Affairs (PASA) program at USC Rossier. He called on his mentor, Tracy Poon Tambascia, current professor at USC Rossier, who at the time directed the cultural center at Whittier College. Vigil had originally planned to pursue business but soon decided he needed to find a field where he could make a difference in someone’s life. In response, Vigil founded the college’s BGLAD (Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, and Allies for Diversity) student organization, which is still flourishing today.
That mission took form in 1999, while he was an undergraduate at Whittier College and found few outlets for LGBT students like him. But his success has also been driven by his desire to empower lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students and enlighten their peers about diversity on college campuses. Vigil’s work ethic is impossible to dispute. When he became the first in his family to attend college, Vigil asked himself, “Why not go all the way?” He subsequently earned his master’s degree and immediately followed with his doctorate. Rather than leading him astray, this early independence allowed him to devote himself to work and school in an effort to harness education as “the way out of difficult circumstances.”īy junior high, he had developed a dogged focus on getting into college and spent most of his time filling up his résumé with extracurricular activities and student leadership roles. An only child, Vigil remembers being left to care for himself for days at a time in his mother’s absence. Vigil grew up in Pico Rivera - a city in southeastern Los Angeles County - in a family with limited financial resources. “And many of our students come with pride about the different identities that they have.” “Being a gay Latino male, raised in a single parent household of low socio-economic status, and being a first-generation college student have all shaped who I am today - and I am proud of all of them,” said Vigil, while at his desk in the USC LGBT Resource Center. Vincent Vigil ME ’04, EdD ’07 says that his path as a leader in student affairs was shaped by six visible and invisible identities. Vincent Vigil serves as director of the USC LGBT Resource Center.