Welcome...

Hello all Campus Pride peeps! Yes, we know it isn't Friday. In fact, Friday was quite a few days ago. But, alas, tech difficulties prevented us from getting last week's edition of Queer It Up! Friday online. Here it is today, all it's fabulousness: In this edition...

• HOT LIST! Randi Driscoll, Musical Act
• WOWSA! Camp Pride early bird rates extended!
• Even on Religious Campuses, Students Fight for Gay Identity
• Queering your school library
• Camper says hello, shares experiences
• Let us feature your campus!

Check out this week's great features after the jump...

HOT LIST! Randi Driscoll, Musical Act

Randi Driscoll is a singer and songwriter whose original music, voice and passionate stage performances have earned her many accolades including; Campus Activities Magazine's, "Female Performer of the Year 2004" and "Best Small Venue Performer 2004". Randi is an independent artist who tours and performs year round at colleges, clubs, festivals, and benefit concerts. Randi says that her greatest personal accomplishment is her song, "What Matters", written in response to the death of Matthew Shepard, a young man killed in a brutal hate crime. She has been touring North America for several years entertaining large and small audiences with her blend of powerful music and words, inspiring praise for her musical talents and her dedication to social justice. Learn more...

WOWSA! Camp Pride early bird rates extended!

Registration for Campus Pride's fifth annual Summer Leadership Camp is open online and we've extended early bird discount rates to May 16!

Camp Pride returns to Nashville, Tenn., on this anniversary year with brand new and exciting programming and features. As usual, the camp will be a place where LGBTQ and ally students learn to "Lead with Pride," but we're most excited about this year's first-ever Advisor Bootcamp.

The Advisor Bootcamp is a special, professional track during the camp, with new skill-building experiences for LGBTQ and ally organization/club advisors.

The five-day event will be held at Vanderbilt University, July 19-24, 2011.

Remember, our Happy Camper Discount ends on May 16, so start registering today!

Even on Religious Campuses, Students Fight for Gay Identity

By Erik Eckholm, New York Times, April 18, 2011

WACO, Tex. — Battles for acceptance by gay and lesbian students have erupted in the places that expect it the least: the scores of Bible colleges and evangelical Christian universities that, in their founding beliefs, see homosexuality as a sin.

Decades after the gay rights movement swept the country’s secular schools, more gays and lesbians at Christian colleges are starting to come out of the closet, demanding a right to proclaim their identities and form campus clubs, and rejecting suggestions to seek help in suppressing homosexual desires.

Many of the newly assertive students grew up as Christians and developed a sense of their sexual identities only after starting college, and after years of inner torment. They spring from a new generation of evangelical youths that, over all, holds far less harsh views of homosexuality than its elders.

But in their efforts to assert themselves, whether in campus clubs or more publicly on Facebook, gay students are running up against administrators who defend what they describe as God’s law on sexual morality, and who must also answer to conservative trustees and alumni.

Read the rest at The New York Times...

Queering your school library

Libraries are great sources of knowledge. They have been the go-to places for wisdom-seekers for millenia. And, a student at Murray State University in Pennsylvania is seeking to put a little more queer in her college's literary volumes.

Rachel Loomis, a senior, serves as president of Murray State Alliance, the campus' LGBT student organization. She explained to Campus Pride how she and her group have undertaken efforts to ensure LGBT voices are a part of their library:

The very beginning idea for LGBT-book donation/fundraiser developed out of a desire to see more LGBTQIA resources on campus. Our school's LGBT organization, the Murray State Alliance (of which I am currently the president), LGBT services and the Office of Multicultural Affairs generally provide LGBTQIA information but these organizations have very limited budgets (particularly our Alliance), so we struggled to find a way to bring resources to our campus affordably. From this, we considered different ways to do this. The book idea, however, came after a student approached me complaining that she could not find enough current resources for her identity (bisexual) in the library. Our library has been good about providing books on a variety of topics but they, like us, have a limited budget and a lot of students and subjects to cater to. But this problem got me thinking about the importance of LGBTQIA themed books in the library and, as a result, got our group talking. Additionally, we had just begun a safe
zone program in August 2010 and had the e-mail addresses of all the participating faculty and staff. So, we further developed the idea into a book donation (for those who had books they wanted to donate. We've gotten 19 books donated so far) and a book fundraiser (for those who wanted to donate but didn't know anything about LGBT literature) that mainly targeted supportive faculty and staff, although student donations have been encouraged and gladly accepted. Also, in the spirit of literature, we discussed with the university book store about stocking more LGBTQIA themed literature in their book section. We felt this would be a good introduction of LGBTQIA literature onto campus.

We say kudos to Rachel, Murray State Alliance and Murray State University. It's a great idea, and one Campus Pride would like to see emulated. What tips and tricks might you have for similar fundraising and awareness building? Share them with us! Email matt@campuspride.org.

Camper says hello, shares experiences

A 2010 Camp Pride attendee, Tulane student Tommy Gray, recently shared with Campus Pride some of his great adventures...

On campus dining services...
I’ve been working with a student organization on campus advocating for better working conditions and pay for our campus dining service employees. They are subcontracted through Sodexo, a company with many human rights violation charges around the world. Most recently we had a woman from the Dominican Republic come to campus and talk about her experiences working with Sodexo. It was very disheartening to hear about her struggles, but also motivating to continue our work on campus. It’s an extremely complicated issue and campaign, but if you’d like to learn more about our labor organizing with these workers, let me know, and I can tell you more (details) about it.

On campus bias incidents...
Our LGBTQA Advisory Board is currently working on helping to develop a bias incident response team that will first be implemented in housing then university-wide as flaws are worked out. We are also working with housing to ensure housing accommodations for transgender students as well as working with the University Senate (comprised of administrators and some faculty) to include gender identity and expression in the nondiscrimination clause. It passed the committee immediately before Hurricane Katrina, but we’re unsure if it was officially approved through the full Senate. If so, then the nondiscrimination policy will be updated immediately. If not, we’re going to make sure that it happens. We have many more initiatives we plan on working on, but that’s where we’re at right now.

On his run for prez...
I ran for Undergraduate Student Government President. It was an extremely intense election – a lot of bad things were said about me during the elections from the other candidates and other members of USG, but I made sure to keep my campaign positive. In the first round of voting I got the most votes with 40%, but since it wasn’t 50%, there was a run-off election between the second-place person and me. In the run-off election there was even more shady tactics going on from my opponent in my opinion, and I ended up losing to him. The way I look at it – there were hundreds of people that voted for me, support me, and ultimately believe in my abilities as a leader which is the positive I took out of it. The relationships with my friends grew stronger, and I appreciate my friends and supporters so much more from this experience. I am very content with the results, however, because it opened up other opportunities for me.

Let us feature your campus!

Do you have stories, experiences, tips or tricks like Rachel and Tommy? We want to feature student leaders, campus organizations and other student-led and -initiated efforts! We want to praise your successes and examine your challenges. Profiling them here gives other students the opportunity to learn from your mistakes as well as your achievements. All-in-all, we can help each other make better campuses and communities for LGBTQ people! If your student-led campus or community group has something to share, shoot an email off to matt@campuspride.org.

Want more? Check out our past Queer It Up! coverage.