Lavender Leadership Honor Society
The Lavender Leadership Honor Society (LLHS) celebrates and develops leadership to foster inclusion based on gender and sexuality. Open to University of Maryland, College Park undergraduate and graduate students, staff, faculty, and alumni, LLHS was founded in 2015 and recognized in the Washington Post as the first collegiate honor society of its kind. The 2025-2026 program structure is designed to cultivate community, connections, and university-wide impact through year-round check-ins, community building, leadership programming, and expert-led projects. Each year concludes with an induction ceremony honoring new inductees. Since its inception, LLHS has played a pivotal role in empowering individuals to create welcoming environments within the university. Its ongoing dedication to nurturing leaders has made it a cornerstone of the campus community, inspiring positive change and growth.
Eligibility
Applicants are selected based on leadership skills and commitment to supporting diverse gender identities, expressions, sexes, and sexual orientations. Leadership is defined beyond the normative notion of having the loudest voice, encompassing creatives, strategists, mobilizers, and thinkers. The LLHS application will launch in late August 2025.
Inductee Benefits
- Networking: Build community with fellow students, faculty, staff, and alumni.
- Expert Learning: Learn from project lead experts.
- Induction: Become an inductee of LLHS.
Program Outline
Honorary Members
In addition to inducting over 200 student, staff, faculty, and alumni members to the honor society since our founding in 2015, we have inducted several honorary members:
- Mara Keisling, Founding Executive Director of the National Center Transgender Equality
- Laverne Cox, Actress and advocate for trans women of color and human rights
- Fanta Aw, international and higher education leader
- Cathy Cohen, scholar and intersectional social justice champion
- Urooj Arshad, international sexual and reproductive rights advocate and queer Muslim organizer
- Chloe Schwenke, international development expert and transgender advocate
- Eboné F. Bell, founder and Editor-in-Chief of Tagg Magazine ~ "Everything Lesbian, Queer, and Under the Rainbow"