Hall directors are trying to make gay students more comfortable in the residence halls, and they discussed how to do that in an open forum titled “Coming Out in the Residence Halls” Thursday.

About 20 students discussed the resources available to them in Helser Hall’s Chessman Lounge Thursday as part of National Coming Out Days. They also shared their personal experiences.

Ryan Gildersleeve, Birch-Welch-Roberts hall director, initiated the discussion by outlining the resources currently available to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.

“Many [resident assistants] have Safe Zone stickers, which indicate that they are open to talk about all issues,” he said. Hall directors also should be willing to meet with students, he said.

Scott Reichmann, junior in aerospace engineering, said a few changes could be made to help facilitate the students. He said staff members need to listen to students better and follow through by making the floors comfortable for individuals.

“It really helps to have someone stepping in who is aware enough of what is going on,” he said.

Students said people often forget the large influence RAs and cabinet members have on the environment of their floors.

Levi Richardson, junior in pre-business, said he has been openly gay all through college and has had mixed experiences in the dorms.

“My freshman year in Spinney Hall was awful,” he said. “I didn’t like that hall very much at all.”

Since then, Richardson has become an RA in Griffith House in the Towers Residence Association and said he feels comfortable everywhere.

“The attitude you take on makes a difference,” he said.

Richardson said he made the decision to “come out” to his floor this week at a house meeting.

“I started off talking about how awesome the floor is and how much I appreciated them,” he said. “Then I went blank, and some time in the next 10 minutes, I had come out.”

Richardson said the floor was incredibly supportive.

“Immediately someone cracked a joke about me getting free stuff during National Coming Out Week,” he said.

The key as an RA, Richardson said, is to let the students know that if they have problems with a person’s sexual orientation, it isn’t OK to express it on their floor.

Scott Reichmann, who lives in Niles-Foster House in Friley Hall, said his experiences have also been affected by floor leaders.

“I had a lot of support from my house cabinet this year,” he said.

Reichmann’s floor had an incident involving a homophobic occurrence several years ago, he said, and the cabinet wanted to make sure nothing similar would occur again.

The residents vocalized their concerns in house meetings by establishing the rule that anyone caught causing problems would be immediately removed from the floor, he said.

“They even reiterated it a few weeks later,” Reichmann said. “They then came to me personally and talked about how things were going.”

Anna Hammerschmidt, Lower Friley and Westgate Hall director, said the Department of Residence has become more helpful to students.

“I think we really are making small progress,” she said. “I’m not trying to cloud the issue, but we are doing a better job of hiring staff to assist students.”

Olson said she hopes people benefit from sharing experiences.

“I hope people will use their resources,” she said. “I know there are so many people who aren’t making these contacts -ÿI just hope people are doing OK.”