GLBT center established
This semester will be the first that students have access to a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Questioning and Allied Resource Center on campus. The center, known as GATHER, is temporarily housed in the Wellness Center.
Wiess College sophomore Althea Skinner led the student-run initiative to create the center, petitioning the President’s Council on GLBT Campus Climate for funding last year. Skinner said she proposed a permanent space that would serve as resource for the GLBT community.
“When I got to Rice last year in August and I began to get acquainted with the school, I found that there wasn’t much of a unified gay community.” Skinner said. “There was no place for people to hang out. It’s not that it was an intolerant environment, but it was not very welcoming, I think.”
The council supported her proposal, and appointed Director of Multicultural Affairs Cathi Clack and Director of the Wellness Center Emily Dexter Page as advisors to the project.
GATHER should move into a permanent space, likely in the Student Center, by next fall, Clack said.
The center will have a library of books, movies, journals and magazines about GLBT issues. The current library numbers about 40 books, Christel Miller said, a Brown College senior, said.
Miller, along with Skinner, is a member of the nine-person board that will raise funds and plan programming for GATHER. The board is in the process of seeking donors from the community. GATHER is currently operating using funds from Clack’s Multicultural Affairs office.
Jones College senior Andrew Johnstone, another member of the board, said he thinks the time was right for students to create a resource center. Rice will join a hundred schools across the country with similar centers, including Texas A&M University.
“Any comparable university across the country has a resource center, or has one in the making, or has had one for 20 years,” Johnstone said. “I personally think the timing was just about perfect, the campus wasn’t quite as divided as it was in the Hatfield incident. It was a perfect time … to bring the campus together.”
In Fall 2002, Head Football Coach Ken Hatfield told the Chronicle of Higher Education that he would consider removing a player from his team if he found out the player were gay. The incident set off a series of discussions about intolerance on campus, and prompted former President Malcolm Gillis to form the President’s Council on GLBT Campus Climate.
Skinner said she has not received any negative feedback about GATHER from current Rice students, but did receive some negative feedback from several alumni and Houston community members who read about the center’s opening in a July 13 Houston Chronicle article.
Skinner said she has many goals for the coming year, including sponsoring speakers on GLBT issues through the Baker Institute for Public Policy, working with other campus organizations, including PRIDE, and developing a list of GLBT resources in Fondren Library and elsewhere on campus to accompany GATHER’s own library. Eventually Skinner hopes the center will offer other services, such as free STD testing.
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