Equipped with pride flags and posters, students and faculty walked across campus to celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month.
The Oct. 3 procession started from the Crafton Alumni Pavilion and finished at the front steps of Old Main.
Members of the PRISM Alliance spoke about the importance of promoting inclusivity and supporting the LGBTQ+ community at UCA.
PRISM, which stands for pride, raising awareness, involvement, support and mentoring alliance, is UCA’s gay-straight alliance RSO.
According to PRISM’s RSO webpage, “The alliance works to promote awareness, equality and understanding, and to dispense LGBTQIA-related information campus-wide. In addition, it strives to offer support services for LGBTQIA students.”
Taine Duncan, associate professor of philosophy and director of the gender studies program, said there are many academic opportunities for students in the LGBTQ+ community and other students who might be interested.
Duncan said, “If you want to study and do research into the importance of queer theory and its foundations to so many disciplines, we have an interdisciplinary gender studies minor that you can add to any major.”
Duncan also mentioned an academic resource on campus called the Lavender Library.
Duncan said, “It is an academic resource center that includes a library of free books and materials that you can come, you can take, you can borrow, you can give to someone else.”
Duncan said the Lavender Library was located in Arkansas Hall.
Evan Faidley, assistant professor of the college student personnel administration, concluded the event by speaking about how important the LGBTQ+ community was on campus.
Faidley said, “It is an honor to be able to be up here and to see such, not beautiful faces, but beautiful energy and beautiful solidarity and a commitment to ensure that everyone feels courageous, seen, uplifted, loved, valued.”
“So thank you all. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being queer, queer allies, queer members, thank you for being you,” Faidley said.
Senior Emma Busteed said, “We are doing a pride walk to celebrate the amazing diversity that we have on campus and show that we’re really thriving and striving to be a more open and accepting campus and that we do all exist here, and we are proud.”
Sophomore Seraph Snow, president of PRISM, also took part in the walk. Snow said these community events are important, despite new state legislation discouraging minority-exclusive spaces.
Snow said, “Last year was my first time, and it was great. It was the first time I’d ever been to any pride event. And so we wanted to provide that for people this year.
“LGBTQ exclusive events were exclusionary to other people, even though in every statement, we said it was open to all, it was a whole issue that was very distressing to deal with. So we can’t really rely on the university because they are constrained by state laws. We have to depend on each other,” she said.
Hannah Hanshaw, director of the AmeriCorps program and co-advisor for PRISM, said there were difficulties in organizing the Pride Walk and related activities due to office reorganizations.
Hanshaw said, “The former Office of Diversity and Community went through a reorganization this summer and the new Office of Student Advocacy and Community no longer hosts LGBTQ+ programming. We obviously still felt like this is a really important event to celebrate queer joy, commemorate LGBTQ+ History Month, and just remind our students that UCA is a safe space for them.”
Hanshaw said, “UCA was the only safe space I had as I was coming out here as an undergrad, and I know that is still the case for so many of our students.”