This upcoming Thursday the GLBT Center will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary in the Piedmont-Mountains Ballroom of Talley Student Union starting at 6 p.m. Students and staff involved with the GLBT Center hope the event will serve as a time for the center to reflect on this past decade and create a vision for the next 10 years.
Renee Wells, director of the GLBT Center at NC State for the past three years, is one of the many involved with the GLBT Center that is looking forward to the event on Thursday. According to Wells, about 700 students have engaged with the GLBT Center as of fall 2017, many of whom are also excited for the event.
“This is an opportunity for us to celebrate the high impact that we are doing now, and also create a clear vision going into the future,” Wells said. “It’s a good point to mark the progress we have achieved … and also decide what’s the next step for us.”
According to Andy DeRoin, program coordinator for the GLBT Center, the archive of the center’s history that will be on display on Thursday has been a work in progress for the past three years. The GLBT Center expects there to not only be current students at the event, but also alumni who were actively involved with the GLBT Center as students.
“There will be alumni coming, so they’ll be able to see their tracks and the impact that they left on NC State,” said Anna Christopher, a graduate student studying social work and an active member of the GLBT Center.
Despite the hard work done by DeRoin and others, very little is known about some of the items in the center’s archive, so the exhibit on Thursday will be a “working exhibit.” This aspect allows other community members, especially alumni, to help identify the items that will be on display.
“We’re hoping people who attend our 10-year anniversary help us identify what’s going on in the pictures that we have,” DeRoin said. “We have a bunch of old pictures, and we don’t know what’s going in them or who is in them.”
Justine Hollingshead, the current assistant vice chancellor of the Department of Academic and Student Affairs, spearheaded the initiative to create the GLBT Center 10 years ago. Today, the GLBT Center is well-supported by the student body of NC State and is completely funded by student fees, according to Wells.
“The population needed institutional support and a commitment from the institution to support the community,” Wells said. “For the safety, well-being and creating a sense of welcomeness.”
The GLBT Center has many initiatives, but mainly focuses on providing support for the GLBT community, educational programs for students, faculty and staff and advocating for policies that promote equity, according to Wells. In the future, Wells hopes the center will focus on expanding the center’s outreach to the student body for education and promotion of equality.
“We’re really interested in capacity building,” Wells said “We can’t do the work of shifting the campus culture on our own. There are only four of us in the center, as far as staff goes.”
Ultimately, students, particularly within the GLBT community, think of the center as a welcoming environment. According to Christopher, current faculty and students are hopeful that the GLBT Center can continue to serve in that capacity for years to come.
“It’s really important to have people who can hear you and understand you, no matter what’s going on, whether it’s GLBT-related or not,” Christopher said.
