Transgender students at Shepherd University have been allowed to live in gender-inclusive housing for at least four years.
"Our campus is very open and embracing and welcoming of students, so no matter how they identify, we are accepting of them," said Liz Sechler, director of residence life.
Any student at the school can opt to live in apartments or suites that allow any student, regardless of their gender identity or sex, to live together.
And Sechler said that model has been successful thus far.
Shepherd University, like almost every other four-year public college and university in West Virginia that offers on-campus housing, plans to easily comply with President Barack Obama's recent Title IX directive on transgender students. With at least one local school board vowing not to comply with the directive, colleges in the Mountain State seem to be embracing it.
Among other requirements, the directive requires schools to allow transgender students to have access to housing and other school facilities that match their gender identity or risk losing federal funding.
As incoming college students across the state prepare to live in dorms for the upcoming school year, most colleges in the state are working fast to make sure their policies fall in line with the new directive.
"I've been one of the people that has seen it go through all the issues - the race issue, the homosexual and lesbian issues and those kinds of thing. We've survived it all," said Jerry Burkhammer, director of residence life at Glenville State College. "I think probably the students will be more understanding of it than the parents ... A lot of the parents here are old fashioned."
Burkhammer, who is coming up on his 30th anniversary working at Glenville State, said his school is in the process of meeting with Title IX experts to update the school's housing policy. He wouldn't be surprised if the directive ultimately ends up facing a fight in the Supreme Court.
To his knowledge, no transgender student has tried to live in Glenville's dorms.
West Virginia State University hasn't made any policy changes as of yet, according to spokeswoman Kimberly Osborne.
WVSU's current policy on social justice, which is meant to "promote equitable and fair treatment in every aspect of campus life and employment for all persons," doesn't explicitly protect from discrimination because of someone's gender identity as several other colleges have.
"We need to do some more research to determine how we're going to meet our students' needs," Osborne said. "That means we're continuing to explore the options to see how other universities are doing it and see what can we do - what we need to do. We're still gathering information."
Jarvis Purnell, WVSU's director of residence life, said he was not allowed to speak to the Charleston Gazette-Mail without getting his comments pre-approved by the school. Osborne said when Anthony Jenkins, the school's new president, starts on July 1, reviewing the school's housing policies will be a top priority.
Other schools aren't waiting to see what everyone else is doing.
Many, including Bluefield State College, Concord University, West Liberty University, and West Virginia University, already had policies in place to protect students from discrimination because of their gender identity before the directive was released.
Just before the directive came out, Fairmont State University changed its housing policies to allow transgender students to room in dorms that match their gender identity. Alicia Kalka, the school's director of housing and residence life, said the school wants to make sure that transgender students and students in the process of transitioning can find housing they feel comfortable in.
That might mean the student prefers to live with a roommate or they may prefer to live alone. But Kalka said transgender students won't be forced to live in rooms by themselves.
That's important because, besides being prohibited by the directive, research from Bridgewater State University suggests that when transgender students don't have access to housing that matches their gender identity, they might not develop the social and emotional support needed to be successful in college.
"I can tell you that the number of students who are self identifying as transgender is growing," Kalka said. "I think that is something the housing department is very happy with because it makes it easier for us to give them the best housing we can."
Students of Fairmont State University and several other schools sign up for on-campus housing through an online website. On the site, students have the option of selecting another student they know they want to room with or to take a quiz that matches them with a person they don't know.
Kalka said the quiz asks a host of different questions, including whether or not the student is a morning person and how tidy they like to keep their bedrooms. In the future, Fairmont State might add a questions that asks whether students would be okay living with someone who is transgender or gender non-conforming.
For now, though, Kalka said that might be a little too soon for the school. Officials at Fairmont State will reach out to students who self-identify as transgender on the school's application to see how what type of housing they'd prefer to live in.
"We've only had a couple of instances of transgender students living in residence halls, but we handle each situation as needed on a case-by-case scenario," said Le'Kesha Taylor, associate director of residence life at Marshall University. "We've added an opportunity to list how [students] identify on applications that helps us with our placements."
West Virginia University, too, is exploring a new housing model that it hopes will create a deeper sense of community for its transgender students and their allies.
The True Colors community, which WVU will open this fall, is open to all students but specifically targeted at transgender students. The community will be able to house as many as 24 students in Stalnaker Hall. Chris MacDonald, WVU's executive director of housing and residence life, said the school expects the community to be half full since its in its first year.
"It's just so crazy that bathrooms are the linchpin in this issue," MacDonald said.
Reach Jake Jarvis at jake.jarvis@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-7939 or follow @NewsroomJake on Twitter.