The Q Center, summer 2021

Moving into the second quarter of 2021, the Education and Training Program of the Q Center began an ambitious schedule of training for both students and faculty. In total, the program performed 25 sessions with a total of 177 participants. Active Ally performed a total of 20 trainings for a total of 90 participants including both University employees and students. For students, a total of 10 Active Ally trainings were performed for a total of 45 participants. For employees, a total of 10 Active Ally trainings for a total of 45 participants. This semester also included two new sessions produced by the Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Expression (SOGIE) Peer Education Interns. This included a training on non-binary identities and a training on social invisibility in LGBTQ+ communities. With these two training sessions, the number of individual sessions available in the Active Ally Program is now six 1-hour deep dives and one 2-hour foundations session. Human Sexual Identity conducted five sessions since March 2021 for a total of 87 participants. Campus partners who requested our sessions include the School of Management: Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee, TRiO and Student Support Services, the Center for Civic Engagement, Harpur Advising and 20:1.

In addition to the work on education and training, the Q Center participated in the formation of the Pathways to Inclusive Excellence Program set to launch in fall 2021. This program is a collaboration between the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; the Division of Student Affairs; and the School of Management (SOM). Within the committee we have representatives from Residential Life, the Center for Civic Engagement, the Fleishman Center, the School of Management, UDiversity Educational Institute, the Multicultural Resource Center and the Q Center. As a member of the committee, the education and training coordinator managed the assessment and completion tracking processes for the new program. This involved creating the Tracking/Checklist for the B-Engaged Completion Tracking, developing the pre- and post-survey for participants in collaboration with Residential Life, managing the development of the LinkedIn Portfolio Project with the Fleishman Center, managing the development of artifacts of completion and managing the development of the assessment protocols for the foundational trainings in the program. At the close of the spring 2021 semester, the SOGIE Peer Education Program saw two more students complete their CDCI internship course work for the fall 2020/spring 2021 academic year. Both students performed well, creating two new deep-dive sessions for the program and performing extremely well within a pandemic semester and a virtual setting. The students collaborated with several campus communities including Fraternity and Sorority Life and the REACH Peer Educators. They created Instagram-lives, managed the student Active Ally training and participated in student panels in Human Sexual Identity trainings across campus.

Finally, at the end of May, the current education and training coordinator transitioned to a new role at another institution. As a part of transitioning, the coordinator has produced a series of transition documents including a resource manual, table of contents for the education and training Google Drive, schedule of fall employee Active Ally sessions, and hired a total of three SOGIE peer education interns for the 2021/2022 academic year.