ASU’s LGBT initiatives win two national honors
Appalachian’s LGBT center used the slogan, 'Gay? Fine by Me,' as the campaign’s logo for buttons and T-shirts to spread the word to speak out against homophobia and show support of full equality for the LGBT community.
Logo designed by Jessi Hustace
Appalachian State University’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender
(LGBT) group is being recognized for its fall 2011 “Gay? Fine By Me” campaign by the Atticus Circle,
a non-profit organization dedicated to educating and mobilizing straight people to advance equal
rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender partners, parents and their children.
In
addition, graduate assistant Mark Rasdorf, who helped lead the campaign and other service events
with Appalachian’s LGBT Center, is being honored this month with a graduate student award from the
Association for LGBT Issues in Counseling (ALGBTIC).
Appalachian was one of 200 schools to
organize a “Gay? Fine by me” program in its community. The LGBT group on campus set up a day of
awareness with flyers and distributed 100 free T-shirts and buttons to those who signed the pledge
to speak out against homophobia and who supported full equality of the LGBT community. A total of
223 signatures for the pledge were gathered.
Appalachian’s LGBT group was awarded honors at
the 2012 Atticus Circle Awards Luncheon on Wednesday, Feb. 29, in Austin, Texas. Also featured at
the event were Vincent Pryor, former Texas Christian University football player, Paul Boskind, Deer
Oaks Mental Health Associate, and Amy and David Truong, parents of bullying victim Asher Brown.
“The award brings national recognition to our efforts in the High Country and is an
outstanding recognition of the hard work and creativity of the students of the LGBT center who
worked so hard last fall to make our campaign such a success,” said Rasdorf, a graduate student in
Appalachian’s clinical mental health counseling program.
Rasdorf was also recognized at the
ALGBTIC brunch March 24 in San Francisco, Calif.
The graduate student award is based on the
recipients’ significant contributions and commitment to the ALGBTIC and Lesbian Gay Bisexual
Transgender Queer and Questioning (LGBTQQ) communities.
“He is a positive influence in
assisting students in becoming comfortable and open to learning and understanding the needs of
others,” said Dr. Christina Galvin, assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and
Psychological Counseling, who nominated Rasdorf for the award. “I have personally experienced Mark’s
compassion, patience and openness in reaching out to help students, staff and faculty in answering
their questions and inviting them to understand the needs of the ASU LGBT community, in a respectful
and supportive manner.”
ALGBTIC is an organization whose mission is to include recognition of
both individual and social contexts representing the confluence of race, ethnicity, class, gender,
sexual orientation, ability, age, spiritual or religious belief system and indigenous
heritage.
For more information on the Atticus Circle, visit http://www.atticuscircle.org. For
more information on the ALGBTIC, visit http://www.algbtic.org.
