Youth Programs @ SU

Leadership Workshops on the SU Campus

QuERI holds full day leadership workshops in the spring on the university campus for LGBTQ high school students and allies. For these days, we have drawn on the creative talents of the university Residence Life leadership team. The QuERI staff works with Residence Life to create a fun day of mini workshops and the sessions are led by both groups. Topics include: public speaking, making reasoned arguments for LGBTQ student affirmation, planning and running student meetings, building unity and community within student groups, conflict resolution, event planning, and learning from other student leaders.  The day concludes with a tour of the university campus led by LGBTQ/A college students.

Day of Silence and Social Justice Carnival

The Day of Silence (DOS) is a national, annual event where participating students chose to be silent all day in school to represent the every day silencing and invisibility of LGBTQ students.  Research literature well documents that one day of visibility does little to create change and for a number of years we have been exploring ways to make the day more impactful.  Since 2006, QuERI has helped students plan these events for their schools and hosted a “Breaking the Silence” rally on the university campus at the end of the school day. This event included a sharing of stories of marginalization and a commitment to speak out, and pizza. Busloads of students have come every year. Two years ago, we developed the idea of the “social justice carnival” to give students tools to better be able to speak out.  The carnival includes a number of booths, each one designed to help students create a positive message for change.  Students rotate through the booths, making PSAs, learning to document experience,  practicing interrupting a homophobic slur, art projects, our on-going graffiti project,  and creating goals and strategies for campus change.  The SU LGBT Resource Center helps us staff the event. We hope this approach provides greater impact than a single day of visibility.