Iowa State Pride Week seeks to create local community
Brian Achenbach/Iowa State Daily
Ben Duran and Angela Dunkin draw a rainbow-colored kite on the sidewalk by the Campanile as part of LGBT Pride Week on April 20, 2014. Duran and Dunkin, along with junior Brian Gill and sophomore Amy Barnhart, walked around campus coloring on the sidewalks and writing notes to raise awareness for the week and to advertise events.
April 9, 2017
Iowa State’s Pride Summit is kicking Pride Week off with a call for unity and inclusion.
Various clubs and campus organizations will host events Monday through Friday to inform and express what Pride Week is all about.
“It gives us an opportunity to create intentional spaces and gather in community with each other,” said Joel Hochstein, hearing officer for the Office of Student Conduct.
Hochstein said Pride Week is about forming a local community and connecting with other local communities to join together on a national scale.
All students, faculty and staff are welcome to participate in the 10 official panels, activities and political call-to-action events outlined in the LGBTSS Pride Week events webpage.
The Pride Alliance, College of Business, Pride Summit, LGBT Student Services (LGBTSS), Office for Diversity and Inclusion, Gamma Rho Lambda, the Queer Graduate Association and Iowa State oSTEM will host these various events this week.
“The events that the organizations are doing are meaningful in different ways for different people,” Hochstein said.
With events varying from political action sessions, such as Contact Your Representatives! in the Agora at 11 a.m. Thursday to an open campus event for information on sex topics at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Carver, Hochstein said there’s bound to be something for just about everyone.
At 5:30 p.m. Monday, the Pride Summit will host Making Workday Work for You in the lobby of the Student Services Building. The event will include a town hall on the new ISU student information system, allowing students to ask questions about how they fit into this system’s plan.
The Office of the Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion will also host an event at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in Beardshear to discuss the founding of Ames’ first-ever Pride Fest. Students can come by to share their thoughts and opinions, and meet those who are trying to make Ames Pride 2017 a reality.
To get involved in Pride Week, students can attend events, become a part of one of the organizations that host the events or contact the Pride Summit for more information.
