After narrowly voting it down by four votes during its second reading on Nov. 8, the University of Central Florida Student Government Association (SGA) Senate passed a bill on Nov. 29 to create a new SGA-affiliated agency dedicated to LGBTQ+ programming, education and advocacy called the Pride Coalition. The vote count for the third and final reading of the Pride Coalition bill was 26-14-0.
The Pride Coalition will be the first LGBTQ+ organization in UCF’s 50 year history to function as such an entity of the Student Government Association. With SGA agency status, the Pride Coalition will be eligible to receive direct funding from the University’s Activity & Service fee budget. A full-time staff position dedicated to LGBTQ+ issues at UCF will also be created for the to advise the Pride Coalition and support LGBT and allied student resources and services.
Pride Coalition will not be the first LGBT organization at UCF. The Gay Student Association was the first official organization founded at the University in 1976. Its current name is “Equal” and it continues to operate as a registered student organization focused on LGBT social programming. However, it competes with over 400 other registered organizations for access to funds from the Student Senate each year.
As an SGA agency, the entire UCF community will benefit from more programming and resources geared towards LGBT awareness and overall campus inclusion, according to OUTreach Advocacy Board Student Director Nicholas Simons.
Simons led the initiative to create the Pride Coalition, arguing that LGBT and questioning students are one of the most underserved student populations at colleges and universities today. He, along with other students and staff, worked with various SGA and University officials to move this initiative forward over the past four months.
The OUTreach Advocacy Board is a student-run leadership initiative sponsored by UCF’s Student Development & Enrollment Services division and the LGBTQ Services office. Both LGBTQ Services and the OUTreach Advocacy Board were founded in 2011. They operate on a limited budget because they receive education and grant funds from the State of Florida, a pool of state funds that continue to undergo extensive budget cuts. This year UCF faced the second largest budget cuts of any Florida public university with the Tallahassee slashing $52.6 million from its operating budget.
“As one of the largest universities in the country, UCF is very far behind [in serving its LGBT students] and we need to play catch-up,” Simons said during his presentation to the Senate. “Other universities provide the same services that we’re proposing.”
He also argued that agency status would give LGBT students more autonomy in supporting LGBT issues at UCF and in the broader community as well as safeguard LGBT student services at the University from budget cuts.
Not all LGBT students at UCF were supportive of approving the Pride Coalition. SGA senator Jacob Kahn, who is gay, adamantly spoke against the measure at both readings.
“No one minority group is more important than the next,” Kahn said. “By voting for this group, you are saying the LGBTQ community is more important than every other minority group on campus.”
Kahn thinks the Pride Coalition approval means other minority organizations will seek agency status. Since 2002, the Multicultural Student Center has operated as an SGA agency to support multicultural programming and education. He expressed concern that the creation of the Pride Coalition would undermine the effectiveness of the Multicultural Student Center.
The Multicultural Student Center endorsed the formation of the Pride Coalition and sponsored the Senate bill.
When the bill passed, cheers filled the room as students began to hug, laugh and cry in celebration.
The Pride Coalition still has to go before the University’s Activity & Service Fee budget committee to request funding in the upcoming weeks and more than likely will not begin operating until the next fiscal year.
In the Spring of 2013, the UCF Student Union, the Student Government Association and LGBTQ Services plan to open a new communal space for LGBT students and their allies in the Ferrell Commons where Equal’s fist Diva Invasion was held in 1996. The newly formed Pride Coalition will also be involved in this venture.
