Pride: Annual Report 2021-22
Pride's core focus on people and culture enables the center to facilitate student access, success, and a profound sense of belonging.
In the 2021-22 school year, Pride organized 16 programs, engaging nearly 9,000 participants. Their presence at Denver Pridefest reached an impressive 500,000 individuals. With 2,508 subscribers to the Pride Newsletter Listserv, 239 subscribers to the LGBTQ+ Faculty/Staff Listserv, and approximately 50 subscribers to the LGBTQ+ Alumni Network, the demand for information about programs, services, and events is evident.
Furthermore, Pride's educational initiatives trained over 1,302 individuals, including faculty, staff, students, and community members. The Safe Zone program experienced remarkable growth, with 837 participants, more than double the previous record. Notably, 2021 marked the inaugural Winter Lavender Graduation, honoring ten graduates, while Spring Lavender Graduation recognized a cohort of 50, doubling previous years' participation.
Forecast for the Future
For the future, we plan to grow participation in the mentoring program, doubling participation by the end of 2022-2023. After applying our learnings on the swipe-in system, we will conduct a demographic assessment of swipe-in data and Pride’s programs and use it to create a plan for ongoing retention assessment by the end of 2022-2023.
We plan to continue to grow funding of the Leah Memorial Fund through establishing an endowment and finding additional partnerships/donors by next fall. We will also work to provide more access to current funds by revising the LGBTQ+ Scholarship process.
For community focus, we will establish COLORS as a registered student organization to support QTPOC and establish GIGLE as a registered student organization to support trans and nonbinary students.
2021-22 Pride Programs
Pride Leadership Council hosted 15 students, Queers in Action Summit hosted 24, Visible Voices had 30 volunteers and 335 participants trained over 17 panels.
We partnered with Ram Events, the Black/African American Cultural Center, and El Centro for the El Centro-hosted Bachata Dance Lessons over two nights. The In Lack’eh Dance Academy, is an Oakland, Calif. based organization whose mission is to co-create a community of queer, trans, and ally dancers that celebrate our resilience, nurture our collective strength and assist healing from oppression. Instructors from In Lak'ech Dance Academy conducted the event at Colorado State. Through visibility and artistic expression, we are redefining the Afro-Latin Dance community as a safe and affirming space for all gender identities and sexualities. Sixty people participated.
Thirty people attended Pride at Work in which we partnered with the Career Center and Alumni Association; while 50 people attended Out in the Rec in which we partnered with Campus Recreation, finally 100 people attended the CSU Softball Pride Game in which we partnered with Athletics.
Collaborated with the Career Center, Alumni Association, Admissions, LGBTQ+ Employee Network to attend the PrideFest in Denver. Denver PrideFest is a two-day festival that draws visitors from throughout the state of Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region. The weekend kicks off with the Pride 5K on Saturday, June 24, followed by the two-day PrideFest at Denver’s Civic Center Park. The Fest includes more than 250 exhibitors, 30 food & beverage vendors and live performances throughout the weekend. Sunday features the parade at 9:30 am with colorful floats, marchers, music, and more. Pridefest hosted 500,000 people.
The Pride Resource Center’s popular Drag Show partnered Housing and Dining Services, ASCSU, Ram Events and the Residential Leadership Program to reach 1400 in-person with this event and more via livestream.
In collaboration with SLiCE, Pride hosted a “pocket pantry” in our shared kitchen with WGAC. This pantry has non-perishable food for students to take as needed.
2021 saw The Pride Resource Center’s first Winter Lavender Graduation ceremony, where we recognized ten graduates in community. Our Spring Lavender Graduation reached 50 graduating students, which is double our reach in previous years. We partnered with the Career Center and the Alumni Association and had 100 attend in-person and more via livestream, plus recognized 50 graduating students.
Pride partnered with Ram Events, El Centro and the Native American Cultural Center for National Coming Out Day, which had 1000 people in attendance, International Pronouns Day, which had 75 and Sip & Stitch had 30.
The Pride Resource Center partnered with Northern Colorado Equality and the LGBTQ+ Employee Network for this event, which had an attendance of 3,500.
Pride hosted a section of Orientation and Transition Programs’ New Student Success seminar for new and transfer students who identify as LGBTQ+ where new first-year students learn about creating a successful transition to CSU, through the lens of our LGBTQ+ experiences. Through self-awareness, reflection and planning, students explore different aspects of the transition to college including academic success as well as personal and professional goal setting. Six students and one peer facilitator participated.
We hosted 30 attendees to this community retreat through partnerships with Northern Colorado Equality, SPLASH Youth of Northern Colorado and PFLAG of Northern Colorado.
Partnering with Colorado State’s LGBTQ+ Employee Network, we saw an attendance of 50 people.
For this important week, we partnered with the Asian Pacific American Cultural Center, Native American Cultural Center, El Centro, Black/African American Cultural Center, Student Disability Center, Women and Gender Advocacy Center, Northern Colorado Equality, SPLASH Youth of Northern Colorado, Larimer County Alliance for Suicide Prevention, NoCo SafeSpace and PFLAG of Northern Colorado. The program Imagining Trans Futures served 30 people, while Trans Day of Remembrance served 150 .
One of Pride’s annual, signature events, it was hosted in a much more collaborative manner this year and was our largest to date. All SDPS offices participated and we had at least six off-campus community partners. The planning committee included students, staff and trans youth and elders in the community. The beautiful and meaningful event reached over 150 people in-person and on livestream. This established TDORR as Northern Colorado’s event and built relationships with our community to position us as a leader in queer and trans advocacy in our local community.