"Rooted in Catholic teaching on sexuality and gender identity, the plan emphasizes the 'respect, compassion and sensitivity' due to all, and calls all Notre Dame students to cultivate chaste relationships and to support one another in a community of friendship," said a university news release.

Lillis said the actions were huge for a school that has not been welcoming to gay students and has often found itself atop national lists of gay-unfriendly schools. Too bad, she said, because she found the students to be accepting of her. But they had not been afforded the channels to vocalize their thoughts. The climate was one of silence on gay issues.

Alex Coccia, who helped spearhead the student effort to change things at Notre Dame, said a new environment will be especially a big deal for questioning students.

"People need to have a safe environment to go through that process especially in college, which is a trying time for everybody," said Coccia, 21.

Coccia has been involved in bringing change to Notre Dame for a while. He is part of a coalition called the 4 to 5 Movement -- named for data that say four out of five Americans between the ages of 18 and 30 support gay civil rights -- that raised a gay-unfriendly profile of Notre Dame on social media.

A video posted on YouTube highlighted Notre Dame's treatment of gays, including its refusal several times to authorize a gay student organization and to exclude sexual orientation in its non-discrimination clause.

Conservative Catholics oppose the idea of a university that espouses the values of Catholicism catering to homosexuality.

The Sycamore Trust, which says its goal is to protect the Catholic identity of Notre Dame, expressed concern on its website, saying the university's support of a gay club "would give grave scandal damaging to the church, to the university, to students, and to other Catholic institutions and would establish a potential source of serious mischief within the school."

It went on to say, "Surely it is predictable that a group whose organizing principle is same-sex attraction is likely to be a forum, overt or covert, for opposition to the Church's teachings about homosexuality. It may also become an instrumentality in the student 'hookup' culture."

Others were more accepting.