The Q Center, winter 2020

Active Ally Program

Since September 2020, the Q Center has performed 21 total trainings across both the Active Ally Program and requested training offerings for a total of 210 participants. In addition, the Q Center Training Team continued to develop campus partnerships to better offer our services and continue to develop a sense of the community. For this quarter, we continued to develop our partnership with the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences as an advertising and marketing strategy for pharmacy students to receive co-curricular credit. As an expansion, this quarter we have begun to have dialogue with the office of Greek Life about best practices for connecting with Greek Life students and expanding the diversity re-accreditation requirement to offer Q Center Active Ally as an option for student organizations. For the next quarter, the goal will be to continue to develop these partnerships, but to also expand and develop our ability to connect with the paraprofessional employment opportunities on campus.

A total of 13 Active Ally Program trainings have been held for students, faculty and staff. Active Ally student training completed six sessions for a total of 19 participants. We offered two Foundations Level 1 sessions and one each of the four deep dives that are available. A total of seven Active Ally faculty and staff training sessions were offered with a total participation of 48 participants. We offered two Foundations Level 1 sessions, two Unpacking CisHet Privilege sessions, and one each of the other three deep dives that are available. Additionally, for the fall semester, a new Deep Dive was launched titled, “An Introduction to Power.” This session is part of the Introduction to Systems category of Tier 1 of the Active Ally Program Deep Dives. This marks the first major development of the other categories since launching our two identity-based trainings in spring 2020. This session focuses on teaching participants about power and how power operates in social dynamics. At the end of the session, participants are able to recognize and name power dynamics in action. For the next quarter, the goal is to support the SOGIE Peer Educators in launching their Deep Dives in accordance with the CDCI course and develop the Basic Ally Skills category to launch at least one offering for spring 2021 and fall 2021. Development goals for the next quarter also include updating and launching a new version of the Foundations Level 1 training that reflects anecdotal and assessment data around the effectiveness of vocabulary training on LGBTQ identity.

A total of eight other trainings were offered by the Q Center since September 2020, with a total of 143 participants. For the Human Sexual Identity Package, a total of six sessions were held between September and December for a total of 91 participants. Requesting parties include the BHealthy Committee, Alpha Phi Omega, UDiversity, Fleishman Center, and the Health and Wellness Department. For next quarter, the goal is to continue to develop this branch of the Q Center Training and Education program by connecting with faculty within social science programs to highlight our available resources and desire to connect with students in the classroom.

An additional two workshops were performed for the Human Development (HDev) Department and the Q Center FYE UNIV course for a total of 52 participants. For HDev, the Q Center provided a student panel related to coming out and LGBTQ identity, and for the FYE course, the Q Center, in conjunction with the MRC, provided a lesson on privilege and identity. For next quarter, the goal is to continue this work and look for opportunities and trends that highlight a particular session we can institutionalize as a standard for the center.

Staff development since September 2020: The Education and Training program had two students complete the fall 2020 Q Center SOGIE Peer Education CDCI Course. As a part of the course, the students completed the professional obligations of the SOGIE Peer Education program and presented proposals on trainings necessary for the Active Ally Program Tier 1 Deep Dives. For the next quarter, the goal is to develop the proposals and launch two new Deep Dives for spring 2021 and then present on the impact of the program and any changes that are needed.

Q Center operations

The Center has been closed to student traffic since March of this year. This has given us the opportunity to focus on internal operations this semester. We launched a major review of our database systems. This quarter, we focused on cleaning up files, creating naming conventions and organizing the filing structure. We are building an operations manual that will be used by the dozens of student interns, employees and volunteers who normally work in the center each semester. This will provide a uniform set of policies and operating procedures for staff, who are most often only with us for a short three-month assignment, to follow. We hope to reduce the number of wayward files, time spent looking for information from prior semesters and create more uniformity to the work done by each staffer.

Pegasus First Year Experience Program

UNIV 101 ABCs of LGBTQ History, Identities and Cultures

This is the second year we have offered the ABCs of LGBTQ course through the University’s First Year Experience program as a UNIV 101 course. This 2-credit course enrolled 20 students this semester and finished with 18 students in December. The course is a major component of the Q Center’s Pegasus First Year Experience program and is marketed to LGBTQ students and allies in their first semester of college. Students are exposed to a broad survey of LGBTQ history, concepts of identity and the cultural aspects of sexual orientation and gender identity. In addition, they are provided with a broad survey of the campus’s student support and success resources. The course is taught by the center director and co-taught with a student affairs professional — this year the assistant director of the Multicultural Resource Center. Student growth is observed through a series of reflection papers throughout the semester. Students remark that they are surprised at what they didn’t know about LGBTQ history. They are comforted by the readings and discussions on identity and relieved that they are not alone or particularly unique in their struggles with identity. They report being comforted in learning about communities they were unaware of prior to the class.

Pegasus Programming Board

The Pegasus Programming Board operated virtually this semester with five to six students participating. The board is a group of first-year students who plan one program a month for other first-year students. Programs this quarter included:

• Socially Distanced Scavenger Hunt Live on Campus and for Remote Students
• Annual Rocky Horror Picture Show (Halloween) screening, in collaboration with Late Nite Bing
• Virtual Paint Party

Student involvement

While the center was not open to student traffic this semester, and students may have struggled to stay connected and involved, they did manage to stay somewhat connected. The Transcend Discussion Group met weekly through the semester via Zoom. While it planned two in-person sessions this semester, ultimately, those plans were abandoned due to the University’s COVID-19 policy that required registration for in-person events to accommodate contact tracing if it became necessary. Transcend has several members who were not comfortable with the idea of registering for a transgender-related event as they would not want their participation to be trackable. This is normal for many LGBTQ folks who are not publicly out and who access our safe spaces with the promise of some anonymity. The virtual Zoom sessions, however, remained popular.

This quarter, the Q Center supported a small group of students in starting a new chapter of the international organization Out-In-Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (oSTEM). oSTEM is a 501(c)(3) non-profit professional association for LGBTQ+ people in the STEM community. With almost 90 student chapters at colleges/universities and professional chapters in cities across the United States and abroad, oSTEM is the largest chapter-based organization focused on LGBTQ+ people in STEM. Students held three virtual events during the quarter and had as many as 45 students in attendance. They crafted their constitution and are in the process of petitioning the Student Association for an official charter. They will seek recognition from oSTEM Inc. in spring 2021. The Q Center helped the new executive board connect with a number of out LGBTQ STEM professionals, including several Binghamton alumni.

Though we were closed and mostly virtual, the Q Center continued to plan signature programs of the fall semester:

• Annual Pride Month - LGBTQ Pride UNBOUND, a month of virtual connections to LGBTQ events, museums and art exhibits around the world.
• International Pronouns Day - Ask Me My Pronouns employee workshop and Let’s Talk About Pronouns student Instagram Live event.
• Trans Awareness Week - The Legal Landscape legal review for students, Remember with Us – TDOR Instagram Live event and We Remember Virtual Art Gallery exhibit.
• De-Stress Event - Hot Chocolate Study Break Instagram Live Event

We also held a Post-Election Self Care Instagram Live event in collaboration with MHOPE.