Carleton to Celebrate “National Coming Out Week”
To celebrate National Coming Out Week, October 4-12, Carleton’s Gender and Sexuality Center will be sponsoring a number of on-campus events, including a drag show, discussions, and a candlelight vigil. The events listed here are free and open to the public.
The week kicks-off with a drag show on Saturday, October 4 at 10 p.m. in the Sayles-Hill Campus Center. The performance will feature drag queens from Minneapolis’ renowned Gay 90s nightclub.
The week continues with a release party for the publication “When I Knew” on Tuesday, October 4 at 5 p.m. in the Gould Library Athenaeum. The work is a compilation of current and former Carleton students’ coming out stories. “We did the project to have a solid publication that documented the experiences that existed within the queer community here at Carleton,” says project coordinator Justin Smith ‘09 (Crossville, Tenn.) “Not only does it showcase our experiences to each other, but it's something that we can use as an example of who we are and how we exist here.” The release event will feature readings from the publication.
On Thursday, October 9th, the 10th anniversary of the Matthew Shepard attack— at noon, a panel of Carleton faculty and staff will reflect on the high-profile hate crime and provide historical context. The discussion will take place in Leighton Hall, Room 402.
The final event of the week is an open vigil on Friday, October 10 in memory of Shepard. Between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., all members of the Carleton community are invited to light a candle inside the chapel and take time for silent reflection. Shepard was a gay American student at the University of Wyoming who was murdered near Lamarie, Wyo. His murder brought national as well as international attention to the issue of hate crime legislation at the state and federal levels.
National Coming Out Day was first celebrated in the United States on October 11, 1988, the one-year anniversary of the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Although the celebration is still known as “National” Coming Out Week, it is now observed in growing number of countries worldwide. It is a week in which gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, and ally individuals are encouraged to celebrate their identities in visible, positive ways in hopes of encouraging others to do the same.
For more information about any of the events, including disability accommodations, contact the Gender and Sexuality Center at (507) 222-5222.
$48K tuition
Nightclub performers? I was given to believe that Carleton was an institution of higher learning.
$48K tuition
Yes, heaven forbid you should pay $48K in tuition and be allowed to have a little fun once in a while.
UW Madison wannabe
Carleton used to be known for intellectual rigor in serious academic disciplines.
Still is.
I'm at a loss as to when college - any college - was about non-stop courses, debate, lecture and study.
When a band plays on campus, does Carleton cease being intellectually rigorous? When students attend a movie, do they trend backward? Certainly not. I'm guessing your objections are more about your discomfort with the nature of the event than actual outrage that Carleton students' education might somehow be compromised by a drag show.
Until I see you commenting (though I wouldn't know when it's you, Mr. or Ms. Anonymous) whenever there is a post about any non-academic activity at Carleton, I can only assume that your objection here is a facade covering your distaste of this event.
- Brendon Etter
A Play A Day & Lysteria
A formerly great institution
Amen. Carleton needs to expand the horizons of its students. Why stop at burlesque drag revues? There are monster truck pulls, ulimate fighting contests and Miss America events -- all of which encourage students to celebrate their identities in visible, positive ways in hopes of encouraging others to do the same. Carleton struggles to be relevant.
Really?
Dear Anonymous,
Again, is there a way this event diminishes the quality of Carleton other than in your obvious distaste for its content? Some Carleton students do attend monster truck rallies in the Cities - and probably elsewhere. Some watch Miss America on television. Some probably go to Ultimate Fighting contests. Logistically, those are tough events for Carleton to host - the monster truck pull especially would be tough on the turf, perhaps irreparably so.
What of the other colleges and universities across America that host events like this drag show? Is Harvard lessened by such events? Princeton? Oxford? Cambridge? MIT? St. Olaf? The University of Minnesota? Do they all become "formerly great institution(s)" in your view because of such frivolity?
If so, by this test, I fear there are no more great institutions. If not, I wonder at the source of your specific bitterness toward Carleton.
Your argument struggles to be relevant.
- Brendon Etter
A Play A Day & Lysteria
My school can outprovoke your school
It is looney to assert that fringe and counter-culture activities are a necessary part of a good education. If prurience and provocation are the primary basis of an "academic" offering, why stop at drag shows? (Decorum prevents me listing the possibilities.) But suffice to say that they are lurid and apalling even to militant liberals. In the liberal "arms race" to shock and awe, Carleton appears desperate to find the next new fringe pursuit. Hardly worthy of a school that once produced top thinkers and achievers.
I knew you'd let it out.
Mr. or Ms. Anonymous,
You betray your real objections to Carleton and this event in your last response. Nowhere in my previous two comments did I "assert that fringe and counter-culture activities are a necessary part of a good education." Yet that is what you respond to.
I stated only that some activities like these happen and do not diminish the quality of education at any institution. No one seriously advocates drag shows replacing Philosophy 101 or Calculus I or English Lit.
Your true commentary has now revealed itself. You clearly object to liberalism, particularly as represented in academic institutions. You want to take this event and generalize liberalism to under performance of the human mind, to link liberalism with decay rather than with progression of children or young adults and, by extension, society.
Carleton still produces top thinkers and achievers, quite a large number for its size, as do other "liberal" schools that host similar "fringe" events.
Besides, I don't think you've ever truly thought positively of Carleton or any "liberal" school. Your disdain is clear. As such, your attempts at expressing disappointment with Carleton's supposed fall from greatness at the knife-edge of dangerous liberal ideas rings particularly hollow.
Most colleges and universities have always (not just since the 1960s) been hotbeds of "counter-culture" ideas, activities and organizations. The only thing that's changed is the amount of visibility those ideas, activities and organizations have given the proliferation of more accessible forms of popular media, from radio to television to the internet.
Besides, if you want to engage on the topic of "fringe" activities, which is more "prurient", which displays more "provocation", Carleton's drag show or St Olaf hosting Ann Coulter for a lecture? Your thesis hints that St. Olaf would produce more top thinkers and achievers because they made the correct choice.
Though your shallow, irrelevant argument tells everyone that you'd think so because St. Olaf made the "right" choice.
So, rave on, but rave honestly.
If you hate Carleton, let everyone know that it stems from your belief that it is a den of iniquity that destroys the moral fabric of our nation, but please stop feigning disappointment with an institution that I'm sure you've never respected because of your politically-tinged perceptions.
Also, how about this: step out from behind your anonymity, and really stand up for your beliefs. Make your case. State your name. It's the right way to discuss political issues in a democracy, is it not?
- Brendon Etter
A Play A Day & Lysteria
A finishing school for the priviledged
As evidenced by your hate-filled screed above, Carleton has become a bastion of interlorance - sold under the guise of diversity, inclusiveness and inquiry. The school's "Coming Out" event is little more than fast food for VH1 intellects - or more appropriately, fodder for an ignorant, pelvic-centric undergraduate culture.
I choose to remain anonymous - an option justifiably offered by the sponsors of this foum - to avoid harassment and attacks by the
Speech Code Police
.
Ahhh...
Interesting that you wish to label my quite-measured, logical argument countering your statements as a "hate-filled screed" when you offer nothing but taunts toward Carleton and standard right-wing jibes about academia.
Anyone who's read my writing would know that if I'm a member of the "Speech Code Police," then I am most certainly bucking for dismissal from the force, with prejudice.
When you come up with a relevant case to make about the decline of Carleton and, by extension, all institutions of higher learning that host extra-curricular activities that offend your sensibilities, please make it. Otherwise, you sound like so many other FOX News intellects, and I will not be surprised to read the next attack you cut and paste here.
- Brendon Etter
A Play A Day & Lysteria
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