By Audrey Werth/ tr news editor
An installation celebrating LGBT History Month is on display in the TRTR Rotunda through October.
Student activities and the graphics department joined this semester to find opportunities to celebrate more student groups.
“We want to show our students that we are accepting of their identities,” student development assistant Cortney Walden said.
Eddie Brassart, student activities coordinator, said they had looked at all of the inclusion events planned for the year and realized though they recognized most ethnicities, they wanted to include all student identities.
“We want to do more,” Brassart said. “So this year, we are celebrating our LGBT students. We want to show that it’s an inclusive place here, and then we also want to educate students.”
They agreed that gay rights leader Harvey Milk, though important to the LGBT community, may not be known to all students.
A famous quote of his will be on display, and the speech it was a part of will play continuously in the TRTR Rotunda.
In 1977, when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Milk became one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States.
“Harvey Milk was trying to say have hope and be proud of who you are,” Walden said. “It isn’t just about LGBT pride but acknowledging multiple identities. It’s an overall celebration of self.”
Walden said this is the beginning of an effort to find and connect with even more diverse student groups so student activities can also celebrate the identities of those students and create an inclusive, supportive environment.
“We’ve had such great success with the Veterans Memorial and Martin Luther King Jr. display, so we thought for the first time we would use that space to celebrate LGBT pride,” he said.
Graphics manager Angel Briseno, who helped design the other Rotunda displays, also designed the background for this installation.
“I read the speech, and it was talking all about hope. So I tried to make the image a symbol of hope,” Briseno said.
After exploring several options, Briseno decided to invoke hope through an image of the sky — steering clear of the cliché rainbow to represent pride.
“Anyone in the world when they look for hope, they look up to the sky,” he said.
