The Pendulum
Elon, North Carolina • Wednesday, August 26, 2015- Volume 41 Edition 17
j facebook.com/thependulum www.elonpendulum.com ^ 41 ©elonpenduliim
Women’s soccer; FSP 8-9| Volleyball: FSP10-11
Football: FSP 2-5 | Men’s Soccer: FSP 6-7 j Cross Country: FSP 12
The two year catapult
Elon ranks 15 in Campus Pride Index
PHOTO BY MALI TAUXE-STEWAFIT | Photo Editor
The Gender and LGBTQIA center is Eton’s
focused organization for LGBT advocacy.
Leena Dahal
Assistant News Editor
Snug in the corner of second floor Mo
seley, a three-roomed, brightly colored oflice
bedecked with rainbows celebrates its second
birthday this year.
But don’t underestimate the oflice, Elon
University’s Gender and LGBTQIA Center
(GLC), for its age.
After two years of programming, pol
icy changing and community building, it
was announced Monday that the GLC
placed 15th in a nationwide study ranking
LGBTQIA-fiiendly campuses.
Elon’s center received 4.5 out of five stars
and ranked No. 1 in the South.
The GLC leapt over 350 schools since
its last ranking (370th), sending a bold mes
sage to c'oUege campuses: things can happen
quickly with community support on aU levels.
To place in the Top 25 listing in the
Campus Pride Index, an institution had
to score the highest percentages in the
LGBTQIA-friendly benchmarks — a check
list of practices, policies and opportunities
that set LGBTQIA students up for optimal
success. The listing this year includes public
and private universities with student popula
tions ranging firom 1,600 to over 50,000.
A unified voice
When Matthew Antonio Bosch, the only
hired-staff member of the GLC, began his
tenure at Elon in Spring 2013, LGBTQIA
initiatives at Elon were scattered.
The decision to keep Chick-fil-A on cam
pus despite its CEO’s openness to anti-LGBT
rights had been sparking debate throughout
campus. Elon had earned only 2.5 out of 5
stars in its Campus Pride Index that year. The
President’s LGBTQIA task-force had only
just been launched. No formal LGBTQIA
programming existed in one office space.
“I think what lacked the most was a uni
fied voice,” Bosch said. “There was no one
person to go up to and ask, ‘Hey, why does
this matter?”’
That’s where Bosch’s role filled the gap.
Making the GLC’s prescence known fi-om
fraternity and sorority life, to athletics to res
idence life and even the application process,
Bosch strived to engage many areas of campus
in dialogue on LGBTC^-related topics.
On several occasions, that meant standing
in front of Elon’s head coaches in the athletic
deparment and discussing topics that Bosch
SeeLGBTQIA
pages
Confronting race relations
Community Connections to join nationwide discussion on race
Caroline Fernandez
News Editor
The first of four Community Connec
tions panels centering on race relations is
scheduled to take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday,
Sept. 1 in McKinnon Hall.
The topic of the Elon University and
Burlington Times-News-sponsored panel
is “Improving Race Relations in America.”
Jason Husser, assistant professor of polit
ical science and policy studies, will moder
ate the discussion that includes four panel-
ists-Jim Bissett, professor of history, Barrett
Brown, NAACP of Alamance County pres
ident, Patrice Fields, St. Matthew’s AME
Church pastor and Tony Foriest, a former
state senator and retired business executive.
“Many members of the Alamance Coun
ty and Elon University community have
expressed a desire for a civil, authentic con
versation about the ways to understand and
improve race relations in the United States,”
Husser said in a story on E-net.
Unlike past years, during which each fo
rum centered around a different topic, all
four discussions of the 2015-2016 year will
center on an aspect of race in the United
States’past, present and future.
Madison Taylor, executive editor of the
Times-News, recently wrote a column in
which he described why the topic of race
relations was chosen for all four forums, not
just one.
“Last month we decided our first fo
rum topic would be Race Relations,”Taylor
wrote. “But after a few minutes of discus
sion on Monday, we quickly determined
that a single one-hour forum would hardly
be enough to cover such a complex subject
and quickly decided to make Race Relations
the theme for all of our forums this coming
school year. This offers a great opportunity
for a running discussion about what is argu
ably the most important issue in America
today.”
This year marks the third year that Elon
partnered with The Times-News to discuss
methods to improve local and national is
sues.
Last year, three forums were held that
centered on the topics of domestic violence,
the future of the area and the issue of hun
ger.
The event, which is scheduled to run
7-8:15 p.m., is free and open to the public.
In his column, Taylor said in hopes to have
a wide range of views at the event, planners
even considered offering transportation for
people located outside of Elon’s campus.
Race relations
Forum
When: September 1
Where: McKinnon
Hall
Topic: “Improving
Race Relations in
America”
There will be three more forums
about race relations this year