On Oct. 11, 2017, the Stevens Office of Student Affairs hosted the first “National Coming Out Day Campus Celebration” event. This year is the first year for Stevens to formally celebrate ‘National Coming Out Day,’ but this LGBTQ awareness day has existed nationally since 1988. LGBTQ advocacy groups, such as the Human Rights Campaign, say that ‘National Coming Out Day’ helps create an environment that welcomes and accepts gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer-identifying people.
The two-hour long ‘National Coming Out Day’ event, hosted underneath the Moon and Stars sculpture in front of the Samuel C. Williams Library, encouraged all students to celebrate the LGBTQ community at Stevens. The event offered all students a chance to spin a wheel and win a variety of prizes such as rainbow cupcakes, coffee mugs, and colorful rubber ducks.
To encourage and assist the coming out process, the event featured a purple door that students could ‘come out’ of. Students were encouraged, once coming out of the door, to sign their name so that the names could be memorialized.
Jacquis Watters, the Diversity Educator at Stevens, said, “We are keeping the door. Folks can sign it, and I’ll be keeping it in my office.”
The bright door, the food, and the celebration of love appealed to the dozens of students who were at the event at any given time. Ms. Watters said that “the importance of this event” lied in what the event recognized and stood for.
“When we’re talking about supporting all Stevens students,” said Ms. Watters, “it’s imperative to be holistic and see that our differences in our social identities, in particular, must be affirmed for someone to feel like this is home.”
Stevens students in the LGBTQ community or who are allies of the LGBTQ community are encouraged to attend Torch meetings, the LGBTQ society of Stevens.
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