Rice needs Queer Resource Center
When the Princeton Review ranked Rice as one of the Top 20 Most LGBT Friendly schools this year, frankly, we were shocked. Rice severely lacks the dedicated staff, programming and resources for our queer* students when compared to our peer institutions. In a student-led effort to remedy this, we at Query have founded Rainbow, a Queer Resource Center for the greater Rice community.
As students across campus become more involved in gender and sexuality activism, this is a crucial and exciting moment. We are dedicated to using the opportunity that the SA40K Initiative presents to gain institutional ties, be truly impactful and create lasting change on Rice’s campus. We are requesting between $5,000 and $9,250 to provide visibility, safe space, advocacy, support and education for queer individuals and the greater Rice community. We need a center that will act not only as a resource for queer students to learn more about their community and their identity, but also as a place for other organizations on campus to congregate and collaborate in order to make queer friendliness a priority across campus. We need Rainbow.
Whether or not we receive the funding we need, we will continue to work on the behalf of queer communities at Rice. But with the support of the student body, we can do much more. We want to start a dialogue about queer issues and network with groups across campus to promote overall diversity at Rice. We are excited for the future and greatly appreciate the opportunity to have a sustainable impact on Rice’s campus.
This opinions piece is submitted on the behalf of Query, a Queer Theory and Advocacy group. Query meets Saturdays at 2 p.m. in McMurtry Room 115. We can be reached at RiceQuery@gmail.com and look forward to questions and comments related to our proposal, future projects and getting involved.
*In this article, we use the word “queer” as an umbrella term that encompasses every person’s unique identity and experience related to gender and sexuality diversity. It is not meant to be offensive but rather inclusive, without resorting to the bulkiness of long and unwieldy acronyms.
Query, Queer Theory and Advocacy Group
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