After the announcement of the opening of a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Center last August, the center is set to open Jan. 23 at 4:30 p.m.
Deb Luckadoo, Talley Center activities director, explains that it was partly her fault for the heightened publicity of the center.
“It has been a five-year process of planning for the GLBT Center,” Luckadoo said. “The reality is everything just took time — there was never any deliberate foot dragging.”
According to Luckadoo, it took the semester to identify and renovate the location in Talley, formulate the center’s budget, hire full-time permanent staff and get various levels of approval.
Luckadoo also said that the opening of the center was delayed to make sure all of the opening ceremony speakers would be available.
“It was originally scheduled to open Jan. 16, but the provost would be out of town, so we moved it to next week to make sure all speakers would be available,” she said.
Bobby Mills, student body president, said the center’s delay for opening was also a budget issue.
“A lot of it had to do with cost issues,” Mills said. “The [set-up] cost skyrocketed, and that’s all part of the funding for the entire Talley Student Center.”
According to Luckadoo, the original budget proposal for the center was cut from $150,000 to $90,000.
Despite the delay and cost cuts, students, such as Sara Falardeau, a sophomore in English, are still anticipating the center’s opening.
“I’ve heard a lot of negative things on campus about the opening of this center, but I’m really glad it’s finally opening because I think it will help quell some of those negative attitudes,” Falardeau said.
Justine Hollingshead, the center’s director of programs and services, said the opening of the center is an important step in achieving the center’s goals.
“The grand opening symbolically makes a visible commitment from the University that we are moving forward with this as part of the University’s commitment to diversity,” Hollingshead said.
Hollingshead said the ceremony will consist of an extensive list of speakers, including the president of the GLBT advisory board, Student Diversity Advisory Committee President Sarah Kim, Provost Larry Nielsen and Mills.
“The opening ceremony and the speakers are important because they will be educating the larger community to see that the University now has a center and is working to address the needs of the GLBT community,” Hollingshead said.
According to Hollingshead, after the official opening, the center has several plans for programs over the rest of the semester, including some with the group Accepting and Embracing Gender Identity and Sexuality.
“Throughout February, our goal is to address the transgender community, AEGIS will be hosting a panel of discussions related to that community as well as gender social,” Hollingshead said. “We’re also going to have a comedian in April that will look at issues of homophobia on campus, and a brown bag lunch series geared towards faculty and staff.”
In regards to the center’s final opening and the start on these programs, Luckadoo is very excited.
“We’ve been talking about creating this center since the fall of 2002 and we’ve made good steady progress in these five years,” Luckadoo said. “It will be really great to finally see it.”
While Luckadoo said she is eager for the center’s opening, she also already anticipates having a larger center in the future as the number of students visiting, including those not in the GLBT community, grow.
“We are very grateful for the space we have now, but it’s not adequate for the program we eventually hope it to be,” Luckadoo said. “We have already been assured that the GLBT Center will have space when the Talley Student Center is renovated, but that’s some odd years down the road.”
The GLBT Center and its grand opening ceremony are located in 1202 of the Talley Student Center.
