During his first year on campus, Devin Moss heard one message repeated over and over again: LGBT students exist at Northwestern, but they lack a community that brings them together.

So Moss made it his mission to create one.

After nearly two years as the director of the LGBT Resource Center, Moss left NU last month to pursue his Ph.D in cultural and educational policy studies at Loyola University Chicago. Moss was the first full-time employee of the Resource Center.

However, he left feeling confident that the diverse set of community groups he set up have played a role in forming a community among NU’s LGBT students. The community groups ranged from Queer People of Color to Lambda, a collaboration with the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life to connect LGBT students involved in Greek life.

“It’s starting to build that sense of community among students,” he said. “I’m really happy that students are able to start to benefit from what it means to be a queer or trans student at Northwestern and build community and find friends and start great conversations. I’m really proud of that.”

Moss said one of the biggest challenges he faced was a sense of invisibility. He said the fact that the Resource Center is overseen by Multicultural Student Affairs contributed to that.

“Multicultural student affairs offices have been race and ethnicity-based since the 60s or so when they were established,” he said. “Being housed within a multicultural student affairs unit, I’m often seen as a person of color, but not a queer person of color, whereas for me my personal identity of being queer takes salience.”

Rainbow Alliance co-president Peter Cleary said Moss excelled at building community and making himself available to students.

“Devin is just a really friendly presence and really great to have as a resource in Norris,” the rising Weinberg senior said. “He was someone that students could talk to and I think that’s what we will miss most.”

Moss said the University would be conducting a national search to find his replacement. Lesley-Ann Brown, director of campus inclusion and community, could not be reached for comment on Moss’ replacement.

Despite the challenges, Moss said he enjoyed his time at NU.

“I definitely bleed purple,” he said. “I am really thankful for the opportunity to have been able to serve in a position to be able to support the Resource Center through a big transition over the last couple of years and really feeling that I have impacted lives is a good feeling.”

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