GSA to host Second Annual Leadership Conference

“The conference is all about getting GSA leaders together to know each other,” said Conference Co-Chairman Dr. Mark Usry, and also “to get some different insights into what it means to be a leader of an organization, and then to get some ideas about different kinds of programming they could be doing.”  

     There will be 13 institutions from Pennsylvania with about 150 people in total attending the conference.   The LGBT commission at BU started the conference last semester to accommodate its needs and interest in an outlet for the university’s GSA leadership members to attend, according to Usry.

     The theme of the conference is “Our Lives on the ‘A’ List: Academy, Administration, and Activism.”  It will highlight an array of LGBT issues in today’s society that GSA organizations would like to get more involved in.

     The conference will feature several panels that will include LGBT topics such as being “out” in the workplace, spirituality and religious expression, and how to approach “coming out” to friends and family. 

     “Panels are important, they are a way to educate people about LGBT issues, so we can get the real answers from real people,” said GSA President Luis Medina.  “There’s a lot of misconceptions from the LGBT community.”

     The keynote speaker for the event will be BU alumnus ’01 Brain Sims, Esq., who is an Attorney at Law in Philadelphia.  He currently is the staff counsel for policy and planning at the Philadelphia Bar Association and president of both the Equality Advocates of Pennsylvania and the Gay and Lesbian Lawyers of Philadelphia.   The groups of lawyers he overseas advocate equal and legal rights for the LGBT community.

     “I feel strongly about the organizations, I call them ethnicity groups, just like how being gay is an ethnicity,” he said.  Sims elaborated that he enjoys working within LGBT organizations; “It’s the most American thing I do in my day, just to talk to these organizations and discuss what we believe in, it’s great.”

     The title of his speech is called, “Athletes & Allies: A Conversation About LGBT Athletes & Teammates.”  Sims was the team captain for the football team his senior year, when he came out in the middle of the 2000 season and told his team he was gay.   The All-American defensive tackle became the first openly gay college football captain in NCAA history.

     That season turned out to be a notable part of BU Football history as they posted a record of 12-3 and advanced to the NCAA D-II National Championship for the first time in school history, before falling to Delta State in the title game.

     “The idea that high school, college, and professional athletes can be gay is not shocking today,” Sims said.  He explained that athletes today have a better understanding about the matter. 

     Further understanding about LGBT and its principles can be brought about through GSA.  It proves to be an open forum and community for students to feel comfortable about discussing their own sexual orientation.

     “You can come to the GSA, you don’t have to bestow your own sexuality to be in it,” Medina said.  “It’s your own process and if you want help with your process, we are more than willing to help you,” Medina said.

      GSA also advises students to take part in safe zone projects.  “LGBT trains staff and faculty on LGBT issues, so it would be good for LGBT students, who may be out or who may not be out to talk to someone about what they’re going through,” Medina said.  All information discussed would be kept confidential by the participating staff members.

“We’re open,” Medina said, describing the GSA organization, “we’re just like a family to each other, so it’s really nice, it’s like our second family here on campus.

     According to Andrew Stout, a BU alumnus ‘09 and conference co-chairman, the conference is built around social networking and is about bringing students to one place to discuss a common goal of achieving equality for the LGBT community.

     “It becomes a campus-wide effort because the education that takes place here then becomes dispersed through these organizations that come here for this conference,” 
Stout said.  “They take it back to their schools and the GSA then disperses information and does activities that they take from this conference.”