June 2024: Featured this month
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Celebrate Pride Month on campus and around Pittsburgh
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Volunteer on Juneteenth, and find other activities
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Survivor Support Network seeks your help
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PQP nominations are now open
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Pride Month events continue throughout June
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‘Patio’ returns June 26, then look for Pitt at People’s Pride in Wilkinsburg
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In June 1969, following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a New York City gay bar, LGBTQIA+ persons and allies rioted and protested, serving as a watershed moment in what was then called the gay rights movement in the United States. The Stonewall incident was an impetus for organizing Pride marches on a much larger public scale across the country.
Today, Pride events are hosted across the globe, seeking to celebrate the strides in LGTBQIA+ rights and accomplishments of LGBTQIA+ individuals.
Pride also serves as a reminder that members of the LGBTQIA+ community and their families continue to face discrimination and marginalization. It also highlights barriers and obstacles which remain to be dismantled.
The Office for Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion hopes you will consider joining us and our community and campus partners to celebrate Pride Month this June:
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FC Pride in the Park
Thursday, June 6
5 to 8 p.m.
Allegheny Rivertrail Park
285 River Ave., Fox Chapel
The Prevention at Pitt team will be tabling during Pride in the Park. FC Pride in the Park is a family-focused, youth-centered event to connect and celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community in the Fox Chapel Area School District.
An Ignored Crisis: Sexual Assault Against LGBTQIA+ Individuals and People of Color
Friday, June 7
12 noon to 1:30 p.m.
Prevention at Pitt welcomes Dr. Daniel Jacobson López for a virtual presentation on the nuanced forms of sexual assault and violence against LGBTIA+ communities, with particular emphasis of LGBTQIA+ persons of color. Trauma-informed and survivor-centered recommendations and best practices will be discussed. Registration is required.
Pride on the Patio
Wednesday, June 26
11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
William Pitt Union
Groups from both on- and off-campus that support the community are invited to reserve a table where they can provide literature, information, and giveaway items. Pitt departments, offices, and units also will be present at the event. If your group, office, or unit would like a table at Pride on the Patio, please register online.
Book Club with Taylor Waits
Friday, June 28
12 noon to 1:30 p.m.
Cathedral of Learning, 31st Floor
Please join Pitt alum Taylor Waits for a discussion of their newly published book, “Advocating for Queer and BIPOC Survivors of Rape at Public Universities.” Copies of the book are available for pick up on the 31st floor of the Cathedral of Learning in the Prevention at Pitt office. (You must register to receive a book.) Lunch will be provided.
SisTers PGH Presents Peoples Pride
Sunday, June 30
Turner Elementary School
Wilkinsburg
OEDI will collaborate with Pitt Queer Professionals and the Pitt Dental School to table during the annual Peoples Pride event in Wilkinsburg. Please come out to visit and support our Pitt collegues as they highlight, promote, and elevate the great working being done at Pitt to create an inclusionary and welcoming community. The parade starts at 11 a.m.
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Other community Pride Month events
June 15: Lebo Pride (right) is a nonprofit organization bringing queer and gender diverse education and visibility to the larger Mt. Lebanon community through celebration.
June 22: Pride Millvale is an annual celebration that is organized entirely by volunteers who work to create a safe, supportive, loving, fun, and inclusive event for members of the queer community and the allies who stand with them.
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A day off for Juneteenth, a day on for service
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Sign up now for a chance to volunteer in our Pittsburgh neighborhoods
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Although the University will be closed for the Juneteenth federal holiday on Wednesday, June 19, OEDI and PittServes are teaming up to provide three opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to volunteer on June 21, and then attend a community discussion.
Transportation will be provided from campus to each volunteer site. To get more information and to register, please contact Chance Wideman at chw246@pitt.edu.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when slaves in Texas received their freedom. It is now the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States.
The word "Juneteenth" was coined in the late 1890s and the celebration grew, especially in the Black community in the southern United States, then moved northward. It became more widely known nationally during the struggle for racial equality in the 1960s.
In 2021, President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law, making June 19 a federal holiday.
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Intersections of Race & Ableism: The Black Experience in Higher Education
Friday, June 7
12 noon
Virtual
This session offers space to discuss the intersections of ableism and racism and ways to leverage disability justice organizing as a step toward creating a space for Black students to thrive in higher education. It encompasses discussions on the transition to post-secondary education and the experiences of Black students within higher educational settings. Registration is now open.
Stop the Violence Juneteenth Celebration
Saturday, June 15 and Sunday, June 16
Downtown Pittsburgh
Pitt departments can sign up for time blocks to advertise and engage with the community. Participants will be provided a 6-foot table, chair, and tent. Be prepared to distribute information and/or swag! Tabling signup is here. For questions, contact Chance Wideman (chw246@pitt.edu) or Keith Caldwell (keith.caldwell@pitt.edu)
Equipoise Movie Night: “American Fiction”
Tuesday, June 18
3:30 p.m.: Welcome
4 to 6 p.m.: Screening
6 to 7 p.m.: Heavy hors d'oeuvres and talk back/discussion
7:15 p.m.: Happy Hour at The Oaklander
William Pitt Union Room 630
Join members of Equipoise, Pitt’s community for African American and Black staff and faculty, for a film screening of “American Fiction,” a 2023 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Cord Jefferson in his feature directorial debut. Based on the 2001 novel “Erasure” by Percival Everett, it follows a frustrated novelist-professor who writes an outlandish satire of stereotypical "Black" books, only for it to be mistaken for serious literature and published to high sales and critical praise. The film stars Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, Sterling K. Brown, John Ortiz, Erika Alexander, Leslie Uggams, Adam Brody and Keith David.
Rooted in the Community: Collaboration service opportunity with OEDI, Pitt Serves, and the Engaged Campus
Friday, June 21
10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Volunteers can register for one of three service opportunities taking place in the Hill District between 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.. Transportation will be provided from campus to each volunteer site. Pitt Serves will host a Lunch & Learn to discuss the purpose and importance of service following the event in WPU 548, 1 to 3 p.m..Transportation will be provided from campus to each volunteer site. To register, please contact Chance Wideman at chw246@pitt.edu.
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The Survivor Support Network needs your help
Prevention at Pitt’s Survivor Support Network is a community of trained and caring leaders who are knowledgeable about campus and community resources and are committed to supporting survivors of sexual misconduct, sexual assault, and intimate partner violence.
The network is seeking members of the community — including faculty, staff, and graduate students — to learn more about how they can support their peers, co-workers, and friends.
Joining the Survivor Support Network requires participation in two core workshops that will provide basic information about responding to disclosures of sexual misconduct, providing referrals to support resources, and trauma-informed engagement. Members are also required to participate in one elective workshop and a Heart to Heart with the Survivor Support Network.
Training for the Summer 2024 cohort begins this month.
People who complete the training receive a kit for supporting survivors of sexual misconduct, a Prevention at Pitt quarter-zip, and a certificate outlining their membership.
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Pitt Queer Professionals, the University’s organization of LGBTQIA+ faculty and staff, is seeking nominations for officers, including board chair, vice chair, business manager, and media and events director. Officers serve for a two-year term.
Nominations must be received via email to pqp@pitt.edu no later than 12 noon June 19. Ballots will be distributed at the June 20 meeting and each candidate will be expected to give a brief speech prior to the vote.
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In addition, PQP is still seeking responses to its LGBTQIA+ Workplace Pulse Survey. The survey is online and takes approximately eight minutes to complete. It is intended for current employees only, but is designed for faculty and staff to share their current thoughts regarding their workplace experience. The survey is completely voluntary, and participants will remain anonymous.
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Pitt alumna presses support for CROWN Act
State Rep. La'Tasha D. Mayes (BUS ’03) is urging fellow lawmakers to enact the Pennsylvania CROWN Act. The law, introduced in the state’s General Assembly in 2023, would prohibit discrimination based on a person’s hair type, hair texture, or hairstyle.
“Far too often, people of color — and particularly Black Americans — are subjected to incidents of racial discrimination, and although strides have been made to end discrimination through policy, it still exists in reality,” she says.
The law is modeled after similar legislation adopted in more than 20 other states and in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. It passed the state house 182-21 but has not yet been adopted by the state senate. Read more at Hayes’ website.
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Connect with #PittDiversity
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