At the Student Involvement Fair on Wednesday, Syracuse University will invite community members to meet new people in more inclusive spaces.

This year’s Student Involvement Fair will feature a variety of LGBTQ-friendly organizations on campus, ranging from media publications and political advocacy groups to more academic-oriented institutions. The involvement fair follows the Syracuse Cultural Center’s Welcome Fair last week, hosted in part by the LGBT Resource Center.

Students Advocating Sexual Safety and Empowerment, referred to as SASSE, is a campus organization most notable for its comprehensive sexuality education practices and its hosting of “The Vagina Monologues” every February. While SASSE was initially created to help promote a safer environment for women on campus, the organization has developed in recent years to also advocate against gender-based violence, including for transgender people and non-binary individuals.

The group’s mission is to “advocate for sexual safety through activist efforts, education, and other events so that students can express themselves, meet people, and feel comfortable in a supportive environment,” per their Facebook page.

Attendees at this year’s fair also include Syracuse’s Pride Union, a political advocacy group that aims to support and enrich the lives of LGBTQIA+ students at SU, according to their mission statement. The club’s main areas of focus include providing safe spaces for students with marginalized identities on Syracuse’s campus, as well as advocating on behalf of their student communities and challenging stereotypes about queer identities.

SU’s LGBTQA-run publication, The OutCrowd, is another campus organization that will be in attendance at Wednesday’s fair. The media outlet aims to amplify the voices of members of the LGBTQ+ community along with “a platform to publish their editorial and art work,” per the organization’s mission statement. The publication, published once a semester, also invites non-LGBTQ students interested in promoting a “progressive culture.”

Quincy Nolan, a senior communication and rhetorical studies major and the president of SU’s Pride Union and editor-in-chief of The OutCrowd, said his organization’s participation in SU’s Student Involvement Fair is an opportunity for students to find more inclusive environments in the greater campus community.

“Especially being a member of a marginalized group, fostering a sense of community and visibility is such an important thing,” Nolan said.

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And following Theta Tau’s expulsion from campus last April, Nolan said it’s important for campus administrators to support the rights and identities of its queer students. Recorded actions in the Theta Tau videos, two of which were published by The Daily Orange, were called “extremely racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist, and hostile to people with disabilities” by SU Chancellor Kent Syverud and spurred numerous campus-wide conversations surrounding diversity and inclusion.

Nolan, also a member of the Recognize Us movement, a group formed after the initial suspension of Theta Tau to advocate on behalf of minority students, said Syracuse is “nationally known as such a heteronormative environment” and needs to take a more comprehensive stance at dispeling institutional systems of marginalization — and the involvement fair, he said, is a great place to start.

“Now is the time to be as loud and as queer as ever,” he said.

SU’s Student Involvement Fair runs Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Quad.

Published on September 4, 2018 at 11:39 pm

Contact Kelsey: katho101@syr.edu | @writtenbykelsey