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University Chronicle: LGBT remembers coming out of ‘closet’ TUESDAY

Sep 9, 2009 Featured, Journalism, University Chronicle

Disclaimer: Originally published on the St. Cloud State University campus paper, the University Chronicle, on the March 26th 2009. Written by Kai.

This article may not be reproduced in any form, including online media or print media, without first and foremost contacting the University Chronicle.

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It has been 10 years since the LGBT Resource Center was set up, but the history of the LGBT Resource Center is much longer.

The LGBT Resource Center (known as the GLBT Services in the past) first started in 1993 when Dr. Jeffrey Ringer, a Communication Studies Professor, appealed for funds to hire a graduate assistant to help with establishing the GLBT center.

It remained as part of the Women’s Center up until six years later when Sheri Atkinson, with the support of Jane Olsen, the Director of Women’s Center, took over the position as the graduate assistant and decided to move the LGBT Resource Center out of the Women’s Center and into its own office in the Atwood Memorial Center.

“She was literally in a very small office, and the joke was that she called it the ‘closet’,” Olsen said.

Heidi Aldes, the current Director of the LGBT Resource Center, was then a student of SCSU and worked closely with Atkinson in the early days of the Center’s establishment.

“When we were working, we were kind of spilling out of this ‘closet’ space and eventually we were moved to this place (B105, the current LGBT Resource Center office),” Aldes said.

Recently, a number of changes have also been made to The LGBT Resource Center office in Atwood as well as the official Web site of the center.

Aldes said she made those changes to provide students with a safe space to congregate as well as to provide student organizations such as OutLoud and GLBT Alliance a place they could utilize.

Throughout its 10 year history, the LGBT Resource Center has changed and grown from its origins in a tightly cramped room.

The programs and services that the center offers have changed over the years in hopes to suit the needs of the students.

“It really has been amazing and one of the reasons it’s so amazing is that resources have been so limited,” Olsen said

However, Olsen said that the center is still currently working with very limited resources despite now having a full-time graduate assistant.

“Although they have an incredible student staff, they do not have any other professional staff within the center to rely on and that’s hard,” Olsen said.

The LGBT Resource Center and the Women’s Center have worked together in the past as well.

The two centers often work together in events such as Take Back the Night and also worked together with other services to invite Angela Davis in March 2009.

Aldes said she believes that the United States has changed and continues in the right direction, even though it is taking a long time.

Aldes said that she believes the U.S. is “growing, but probably not fast enough.”

She also said that she believes while there is room for improvement for the campus to be inclusive and to offer a supportive environment, the campus has already been making an effort to address whatever shortcomings there are.

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