GALA-ND/SMC News

GALA-ND/SMC awarded Mallory Price, SMC '10, with a scholarship to attend the Campus Pride leadership training week over the past summer.  Below are her reflections on the experience.

My Experience at Campus Pride ‘09

My name is Mallory Price and I am a senior at Saint Mary’s College. I am pursuing a degree in Social Work with minors in Women’s Studies, Justice Education, and U.S. History. I am currently the President of the Straight and Gay Alliance on campus, and was fortunate enough to be the recipient of the 2009 Campus Pride Scholarship from GALA-ND/SMC.

What is Campus Pride?

A week-long leadership camp for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Ally student leaders. It is hosted at Towson University in Baltimore, Maryland. Students come from across the United States to talk about issues in the LGBTQ Community, gain resources and contacts to help establish supportive campuses, and to learn how to advocate for human rights.

Opportunities

We had an incredible amount of opportunities presented to us at Campus Pride. Not only did we get to network with other students across the country, but we also had the chance to meet some amazing and influential members in the LGBTQ community. On our trip into Washington DC, we were able to have a personal meeting with members of congress including Tammy Baldwin and Jared Polis, followed by a tour of the capital by Tammy Baldwin’s staff and ending our day at a dinner with the legendary Frank Kameny. What was most unique about this camp was that students had the ability to actually form friendships with these influential individuals. At the end of camp, they sought us out, and asked us for our resumes. We learned to work together for our cause and how important we are to the future of the LGBTQ community. Students supported one another and gave suggestions and ideas about how to make student groups on campus truly successful, and how to overcome obstacles that stood in your way. Student Leaders created a vision for not only their campus, but also for the future. Best of all, when we left campus pride, we didn’t just leave with that vision, we all had the tools to make that vision a reality.

What You Will Learn

Students learn to recognize the power and privileges we each have in some way. They are given information on how to set up safe spaces on campus, ideas on speakers to bring onto their campus, skills for speaking with administrations to emphasize the importance of an LGBTQ campus and how imperative it is that they help create resource centers to assist students. Students will discover how to use your college’s mission to help create the changes they want to see, and to advocate for improvements not only on their campuses but also in their communities. Students learn about all the LGBTQ national organizations that can give you materials and resources to help spread awareness and gain acceptance and respect.

The Impact Campus Pride Had On My Life

Campus pride did not just provide me with resources and amazing opportunities- it gave me more than I could have ever imagined. It presented me with the confidence to be who I am, and to go full force into advocating for LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff on campus and in the community. I learned strategies to work with other students and helped gain amazing ally support that has furthered our cause.  I gained inspiration from the other students and began to see the ways in which I could truly unite others on the SMC campus, and share that knowledge with ND. I recognized how far behind Saint Mary’s and Notre Dame are concerning human rights and began to make changes the moment I came back to campus.

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Mallory is also preparing presentations for the ND/SMC community, as well as possible other populations, about her experience with Campus Pride.  An early draft can be see by clicking here to download a PDF.

The first week of June was reunion week at both Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s. If you only go back to campus during football weekends, a June trip to South Bend is a reminder of how pleasant late spring and early summer can be in northwest Indiana, and how peaceful and calm the campus can be when you’re not focused on a game.

I returned to campus to moderate one of the many panels held during reunion weekend. GALA-ND/SMC sponsored a June 6 session titled "Alliances and Activism: Engaging Allies and Becoming Active.” We examined how those in the Notre Dame/SMC community are building alliances with GLBT members, with a focus on support mechanisms for students and alumni.   GALA Secretary Liam Dacey helped put together a great panel which included Sr. Sue Dunn, Assoc. VP for Student Affairs at Notre Dame and Co-Chair of the Core Council for Gay and Lesbian Students; Mary Porter, PhD, Professor of Mathematics at Saint Mary’s College and advisor for SMC’s Straight and Gay Alliance; Chaunce Windle, a doctoral candidate in Counseling Psychology at Notre Dame; and Michael Rosanova, Chicago area coordinator for Yale gay alumni who shared his experiences with the OutThere conferences involving various Catholic colleges and universities in the U.S.

The panel discussed the nature of activism in general and on a Catholic college campus in particular, how you identify allies for various projects serving the LGBT community, and the role that alumni can play as partners. We also spent a fair amount of time discussing the current state of all things gay and lesbian at Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s. The bottom line is that there are some good things happening, including a Stand Against Hate Week, but that both schools need to do more.  The consensus was that the top two priorities are recognition of the student group and the addition of sexual orientation to the non-discrimination clause.  You can find some of Michael Rosanova’s prepared comments below. They should give you a flavor of the lively discussion.

While I was on campus, I held meetings with representatives from both colleges in an attempt to raise GALA’s profile and identify other activities that we can build into our plans for the next few years. At Notre Dame, I met with a representative of the Mendoza College of Business to talk about GALA’s participation in a diversity panel, and with the Director of the Gender Relations Center to explore ways in which gay and lesbian issues can be incorporated into the Center’s various programs. I was able to spend some time with the Rev. Mark Poorman, VP for Student Affairs at Notre Dame, to discuss the work of the Core Council; and with Dr. Carol Ann Mooney, President of Saint Mary’s, to talk about the best ways to increase the involvement of SMC graduates in our organization. All in all, a productive few days and ones which left me excited about our activities for the coming year.

Perhaps most important, the weekend gave me a chance to meet some new GALA members and reconnect with some old ones.  This ability to share our unique Notre Dame/SMC experience is what gives GALA its purpose.  I encourage you to reconnect by taking part in a regional activity this summer and visiting our website regularly to get the latest news.  As always, we love hearing your thoughts on our direction and your ideas for new activities. Send a note to chair@galandmsc.org. Have a great summer.

Tom O’Brien
GALA ND/SMC Chair

Notre Dame Panel Discussion Questions: Michael Rosanova (Out Alumni Chicago, Yale GALA)

ND/SMC GALA Panel: "Alliances and Activism: Engaging Allies and Becoming Active"
South Bend, Indiana
Saturday, June 6, 2009

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1.    How is the work you do “activism”?

For Yale GALA, for Out Alumni Chicago and for Dignity, the work that I do fosters networking and relationship building.  In Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities, a history of gay life before and after Stonewall, John D’Emilio argues that the creation of community is the revolutionary act which changed the world for us. Isolation is the Gulag Archipelago for us. When AIDS was spreading across the country in the 1980s and the government categorically refused funding for research and for medical care, the founders of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Larry Kramer and his colleagues, put it this way: “Silence = Death”. Our enemy is invisibility – invisibility even to each other. With every event I plan, I assault the enemy.

2.    How do you identify allies for the work you do?
In order to find representatives of LGBT alumni groups, I consult alumni.princeton.edu/~ffr-gala/ or I  e-mail Shawn Cowls, the coordinator of the GALA Leaders Listserv (galaleaders@yahoogroups.com). In order to find allies at colleges where no LGBT alumni group exists, I contact either the Women’s and Gender Studies Department or the Campus Ministry, or both. That’s what I did both at Loyola and at DePaul. I also post our events on the Message Board of a Chicago-area Meet-up group called “the Chicagoland Gay and Lesbian Professionals Group” (“Chicago Pros,” for short): www.meetup.com/chicagopros. I also network with people who attend Out Alumni Chicago events, asking whether they know whether their colleges have an LGBT alumni group, and if so, how I can be in contact. Finally, I’ve gotten myself onto Facebook – a revolutionary act for a person my age!

3.    What is the goal of the work you do?
I have at least two goals.
My first goal is to expand Yale University’s base of actively engaged alumni – people who actively participate in university-related activities. This brings in lots of people who do NOT participate in local Yale Clubs and also people who do NOT attend quinquennial reunions. This expands and “democratizes” the alumni base in the sense that it brings in a lot of people who give only $50 a year or maybe nothing at all. But it also brings in people with deep pockets – people who were completely unknown and totally inaccessible to the Development Department.
My second goal is to deliver both myself and people like me from the burden of shame which is the product of isolation. We have to make clear to everyone that we are NOT “objectively disordered” and “intrinsically evil”. But before we can expect anyone else to believe this, we have to begin to really accept this ourselves. We have to see ourselves at parties; we have to see ourselves with our nieces and nephews and our own children at the zoo; we have to see ourselves volunteering in service projects; and like God in the Book of Genesis, we must see all this and know that it is good. (Citation: John McNeill, Taking a Chance on God, Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press. See also: Richard Isay, Commitment and Healing: Gay Men and the Need for Romantic Love, Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.)

4.    Is there an ally you’d like to have but is not available?
As a former Catholic schoolboy, and as a sincere, practicing, life-long Catholic, I have a special place in my heart for Catholic schools and Catholic universities. One of the best sources for alliance building among Catholics is a group called Fortunate Families, a group very much like PFLAG (“parents and friends of lesbians and gays”). Their website is: www.fortunatefamilies.com.
Another useful organization is the Nat'l Assn of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian/Gay Ministries: www.nacdlgm.org. A similar organization is Dignity USA: www.dignityusa.org. The difference between the two groups is that Dignity USA openly supports same-sex marriage, LGBT adoptions, and so on, while NACDLGM members have agreed to remain silent on the issue.
But the ally I would most like to see would be the Roman Catholic equivalent of Eugene Robinson, the Episcopalian Bishop of New Hampshire, who is openly gay, married to a man, and despite all that, an intelligent and worthwhile person, who has led a life of commitment and genuinely Christian values. We can only pray for the day when the Catholic Church is able to become as comfortable with the facts as our brothers and sisters in mainline Protestantism.

5.    What can alumni do?
The most important thing for any of us to do is to be out of the closet, to support those who also need to come out,  and otherwise actively to contribute to the welfare of others.

6.    How do your efforts cross tracks with other activists?
We are the natural allies of women’s rights groups and with Catholic reform groups, like Call to Action, that stand up for the liberal spirit of Vatican II.

7.    What charge would you give ND/SMC GALA and alumni on how they can better assist the administration and the current students still on campus?
ND/SMC GALA should make sure that it allies itself with other shared identity groups and other shared interest groups. GALA needs to make clear to the administration that it is an indispensible component of the movement to expand and democratize alumni engagement, which in the end means serious increases in gifts and grants. Financial independence will make it more and more possible for the administration to put aside its fears of reprisals and just do the right thing. 
If you don’t have a lot of money yourself, then concentrate on expanding the GALA network both with LGBT students, alumni and faculty and with non-gay allies. One of the best ways to do this is to implement “SAFE ZONE” training which is one of a number of different curricula for students, faculty and staff which encourages dialogue and understanding. The Safe Zone Foundation has a website: safezonefoundation.tripod.com. I’ve seen the program implemented at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and I’ve been impressed. In a truly safe environment, more and more people will be able to find the courage to be the people that God meant them to be. We cannot even begin to be “the People of God” until all of us allow ourselves to become the people that God meant us to be, and wants us to be. As the Creator of all that is real, God in the end is on the side of truth rather than on the side of deception.


   


 

 

Dear Member,

I am writing to you today because you are a Notre Dame alumnus/a from a grad year ending in 4 or 9.  Since this is a reunion year for your graduating class from ND, we wanted to inform you about a panel being hosted by GALA-ND/SMC during Notre Dame's Reunion 2009 weekend (taking place June 4-7, 2009).

The panel, entitled "Alliances and Activism: Engaging Allies and Becoming Active," will examine how those in the Notre Dame community are building alliances with GLBT members, and will focus on support mechanisms for students and alumni for the future.  As GALA-ND/SMC Chair, I will be on hand to moderate the discussion among panelists and guide Q&A from alumni/ae in attendance.

The panel will take place on Saturday June 6 at 1:30pm; it will be in DeBartolo Hall, Room 203.  We hope that some of you will be able to join us for the panel!  Registration is not necessary, and seating should be plentiful.

For those who will be at the reunion, I will also be hosting a morning coffee for any alumni/ae interested in joining me.  You can join me on Saturday morning at Reckers, the on-campus coffee shop, located in the south side of the South Dining Hall building.  I will be there beginning at 9:15am and you will be able to identify me by my GALA-ND/SMC ballcap.

If you have any questions or want additional info, contact me at chair@galandsmc.org.  

Kind regards,

Tom O'Brien '86
GALA-ND/SMC Chair
chair@galandsmc.org

ND Alumni Reunion weekend is coming up June 4-7.  GALA ND/SMC will be presenting a panel on Saturday, June 6 from 1:30pm-3:30pm in DeBartolo Hall Room 203. 

The panel, entitled "Alliances and Activism: Engaging Allies and Becoming Active," will examine how those in the Notre Dame community are building alliances wit GLBT members, and will focus on support mechanisms for the future. 

We hope that some of you will be able to join us for the panel!  If you have any questions or want additional info, contact me at Secretary@Galandsmc.org. 

Download the letter sent to Father Jenkins here:
JenkinsLetterhead.doc

Although Jenkins rejected the non-discrimination clause, students on campus are still making waves next week...

The University of Notre Dame’s Core Council for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Questioning Students will lead a number of campus activities April 14 to 17 (Tuesday to Friday) as part of “StaND Against Hate Week.”

Co-sponsored by Notre Dame’s Gender Relations Center, student government and University Counseling Center, the week is dedicated to ending all forms of hate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and serves to create an inclusive spirit at Notre Dame for all people, irrespective of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Read more about the activities here.  

Jenkins decides to continue the tired hypocritical policies of the past.  Read the full story here, and feel free to share your thoughts with us. 

GALA ND/SMC submitted a letter to the editor in The Observer today regarding the state of the Queer Film Festival.  Read the whole article here!

GALA-ND/SMC is accepting applications for participation at the Campus Pride Leadership training for GLBT student leaders. The Leadership Camp runs from July 21-26, 2009 in Towson, Maryland.
 
http://www.campuspride.org/camp.asp
 
The scholarship in the amount of $1000 is intended to cover registration and travel. All meals are included in registration. Students may be from either Notre Dame or Saint Mary’s College, GLBT or ally.  The recipient is expected to attend the entire training.
 
If you are interested in the scholarship, please send a one-page letter outlining your reasons for attending and how you would apply lessons learned at the training on campus when you return. Please remember to include all contact information. Send your letter of interest to chair@galandsmc.org by Friday, March 20, 2009.
 
Thank you and good luck! 

This past Monday, Tom O'Neil ('77) independently posted an article about the disappearance of the Notre Dame Queer Film Festival.  Since then, numerous others have responded both in support and disdain of the Queer Film Festival. 

On Wednesday, Teresa Nesbitt ('09) replied here about how the Queer Film Festival helped push her over the edge to go to Notre Dame in the first place and how dearly she misses it. 

Take the time to read The Observer Viewpoints this week to hear what people are saying.  What are your thoughts on this issue?