LGBTQ programs seek to increase campus visibility for community

Photo: The rainbow flag, a symbol of LGBTQ pride, waves through an opened door that was constructed at the National Coming Out Day resource and information fair Monday on the South Oval.
Audio clip: LGBTQ Advisory Board member Bobby Mace talks about the board's programs this month. Monday's National Coming Out Day fair (which he discusses in this clip) is the first the group has organized, and worked with other campus/community groups to co-host events throughout October.

   OU's LGBTQ community will recognize National Coming Out Day Monday morning with a resource and information fair for students on the South Oval, starting OU's observance of Norman's GLBT History Month.

   The program, which lasts from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., is the first National Coming Out Day program that the Student Affairs' Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) Advisory Board has planned for the nationally annual event, during which closeted students are positively encouraged to come out.

   The National Coming Out Day resource fair is one of the several events the board has planned with other campus groups in October. Future programs include booked Sooner Ally trainings on Tuesday and Nov. 6, a candlelight vigil for LGBTQ acceptance on Wednesday and a showing of "Rocky Horror Picture Show" on Friday, Oct. 29. 

Audio Clip: Mace says how organizations should 

reach out to all students on campus.

   This month's LGBTQ programs come on the heels of UOSA and the Norman City Council both passing proclamations last month declaring October to be GLBT History Month. According to the Oklahoma Daily, Student Congress passed the resolution with unanimous consent and the city council 7-1.

   The advisory board collaborated with other local organizations, including OU student organizations GLBTF, United Students and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association, to give students as many resources as possible about Coming Out Day.

   The advisory board started planning more events this year, one member said, after previous years' have lacked involvement and visibility with other groups on campus. 

   Bobby Mace, who works in the Women's Outreach Center office as an LGBTQ Affairs intern, said the program's members realized the board needed to reach out to other communities after it did a campus climate survey earlier this year.

   "So we're basically taking what the students have told us what they wanted, and doing those things," said Mace, an adult and higher education graduate student. "If you're going to program to just the students of GLBTF, then it ignores so many different groups of people."

Students talk about the program with members of the LGBTQ 
Program Advisory Board at Monday's fair.

   Mace became involved in the center through the Sexperts program his sophomore year. As a then-resident adviser, he was the only openly gay employee on staff. But Mace said things have changed so much for the community since he was a freshman because there was not as much visibility on campus and the GLBTF student organization was more divided. 

   "We've just been doing so much in this past semester alone that the change from my freshman year to now ... it wouldn't even seem like the same universe to me," he said.
   Mace said it is especially important for all campus organizations to meet students' needs when they are in college. To accomplish this vision of improving overall student life, the advisory board has specific goals that reach the entire OU community, like more visibility and programming.

   "It's obviously important that we [in the LGBTQ community] recognize our allies, because without our allies, we obviously wouldn't have a lot going on for us at OU," he said."I know that doesn't really seem like a way to get people to realize, but having the increased visibility and the increased programming on campus really does help people to realize that OU is a safe place."

   Mace said he has already contacted more than 40 student groups to get involved with Wednesday's candlelight vigil, which will be in the Unity Garden on the South Oval.

Updated: Monday at 6:30 p.m. with photos of Monday's National Coming Out Day resource fair.