The Continuing Struggle for Diversity at UPEI

By Sarah Murphy _ UPEL is not safe for its gay,

| lesbian, bisexual, and transgen-

dered (GLBT) youth.

UPEI is one of the only Canadian university campuses which does not provide a safe space for GLBT students, faculty, and staff.

“There really hasn’t been a lot done in the community up until

this point, said UPEI alumnus Sue

Rodgers, who with the help of UPEI professor Nola Etkin spear- headed the creation of the Abegweit Rainbow Collective (ARC) Youth Project.

It has always been a

thought within ARC, which started over a year ago, that such a youth

project be created, said Rodgers. Despite her enthusiasm for the the enterprise, she is conscious of the risks involved.

“AS soon as as you talk about gay and lesbian youth, Rodgers explained, “people assume you are a pedophile; they assume you are recruiting.” Such assumptions have already been made about Rodgers who admits this unjust label was one of the organizers’ biggest concerns.

The ARC is not working alone. With funding from Health

Canada and through dialogue with -

the minister of education, the col- lective hope is to begin raising awareness and to provide a safe haven for young adults coming to terms with their sexual orientation. Already, ARC provides informal meeting the first Saturday of every month. Education is a must. “Right now classrooms are Ot safe [for GLBT youth],” said Odgers. “95% of students have card homophobic slurs in the lassroom, and most of the slurs ome from the teachers.” Teachers,

staff and councillors must be edu- cated and we must make sure they are not closed minded, insisted Rogders, a teacher herself. “We must change attitudes.”

_ Rodgers said she has talked to the university, and will be pre- senting at the health fair. There are

ment, the organizers of the student health fair, were a little apprehen- sive.

But Rodgers is not sur- prised.

“In the past, in my student experience here, there hasn’t been a lot of positive stuff, apart from a

As soon as as you talk about gay and lesbian youth, people assume you are a pedophile; they assume you are recruiting.

other youth health fairs going on around the province, noted Rodgers, but she feels that the one at the university is important. Unfortunately, according to Rodgers, the UPEI Nursing depart-

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couple articles in the [student newspaper],” she said. “There are a lot of students on campus who are gay and lesbian, a lot of faculty who are gay and lesbian, and it has always been in the past, all the way

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to the top of the university.”

Despite this, the acceptance of gays and lesbians on campus does not appear to have changed. “There is nothing being done,” Rodgers said. “It is almost like a hypocritical space here and how can you change that.”

But the university is not the only group to blame.

“T think it is PEI. I think PEI is a scary place to be com- pletely open, and I think that limits people in starting something up,” she explained. “Ideally you think something like this could be. But there is a big risk in coming out on PEI and I think everyone sees that.”

Rodgers shared her experi- ence as a student during her under- graduate degree in a small town in Alberta. Rodgers, a member of the

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