From our friends at GayInAthens.com

Students in University of Georgia instructor Jamie Landau’s “Visual Mediated Rhetoric of Gender and Sexuality” class recently created projects that visually display LGBT life in Athens, Georgia. I had the opportunity to speak to Landau’s SPCM 3310 class earlier this summer about what it means to be a gay blogger. The students were well educated on issues of communication within the LGBT community and offered up a number of thought-provoking questions and suggestions for this Web site. (Like, “How do you decide what to put on the Web site?” and “When do you step in and moderate user interaction?”)

Two of the students groups submitted their projects to GayInAthens.com. Below are the results. The first group filmed “a transformation from ‘man’ to ‘woman.’” The second group created a rendition of Charles Ebbet’s world-famous “Lunch Atop A Skyscraper” photograph.

Corvino: We've Still Got Far to Go.

By John Corvino, columnist, 365gay.com

I’m not usually a touchy-feely, share-your-emotions, “Trust the Process” kind of guy. I’m a philosophy professor. I revel in cold, hard logic.

So it was with some trepidation that I signed up as a faculty member for Campus Pride’s annual summer Leadership Camp-which, since it was mostly run by lesbians, student-activities directors, and lesbian student-activities directors, promised to involve a lot more “processing” than I’m normally comfortable with.

To me, “faculty member” normally means strolling into a lecture hall a few times a week, speaking, answering questions, and then retreating to my office while TA’s keep students at a safe distance. Here, it meant being a full-time camp counselor, den monitor, relationship-advice provider, and taskmaster. (Faculty are volunteers who pledge to raise money to support Camp; students’ tuition is subsidized by donations.)

To me, “camp” normally means archery, canoeing, bonfires, and so on. Here, it meant six straight days of workshops-on subjects ranging from Working with Media, to Leadership and Privilege, to Fundraising Tips, to Resume Building and more-with a schedule running from 8:30 a.m. to at least 11 p.m. every day. (We did get to make s’mores, once.)

And what did I learn during this intense time with our movement’s future leaders?

Read More online http://www.365gay.com/opinion/corvino-camp/

Stop the Hate will once again present our 3-day training for trainers program at two locations across the country. The east coast program will be held December 3 through 5, 2009 at the University of North Carolina – Charlotte, North Carolina. The west coast program will be held March 29 through 31, 2010 at the Criminal Justice Training Center at Napa Valley College. Both programs are now open for registration and offer discounts for those who register early. According to the 2007 hate crime statistics complied by the FBI, school campuses continue to be the third most common place for hate crimes to occur. The Stop the Hate program is a unique and intensive program designed specifically for school leaders, administrators, faculty, staff, and students to prevent hate crimes and bias incidents on college campuses. Participants learn how to conduct workshops designed to raise awareness about hate crimes and bias incidents and how to develop effective strategies to prevent such incidents from happening in the first place. Stop the Hate is proud to have as educational partners the Southern Poverty Law Center, Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, Anti Defamation League, Matthew Shepard Foundation, Wilbron Institute, and the Napa Valley College Criminal Justice Training Center. To learn more about Stop the Hate or to find out more about how to bring a program to your campus, call Greg Miraglia, National Program Coordinator, at 707-333-8353, or visit our website at www.stophate.org

We all know that Kathy Griffin loves the gay community, but if there was any question about that, it was answered on last night’s episode of My Life on the D-List. Kathy decided that in order to fulfill her quest to make it to the A-List, she needed to become an activist, and what better way to do that than to protest Prop 8? Well, we can debate that, but her heart is in the right place. In any event, there were a few segments during the episode that resonated with me, so I wanted to discuss them here. (btw, I realize the reference may be a bit dated for this audience, but this entry title and Kathy's sign are references to the 1979 movie Norma Rae starring Sally Field).

First, and perhaps least insightful of my observations (though I don’t necessarily claim that any are particularly sage), I was surprised to hear one woman with whom Kathy spoke while she was canvassing against Prop 8 say something along the lines of, “I have no problem with gay relationships. They can have unions, which gives them the same rights as marriage.” Right? WRONG. Kathy, fortunately, was armed with the famous factoid that marriage provides over 1,000 federal benefits that civil unions do not. This made me wonder, though, how many people have this sort of misinformation? And if they had the correct information, would it have changed their votes? What a lovely illustration of the need to educate the public, no?

Campus Pride & CAMPUSPEAK Establish Partnership

Award-winning agency exclusively representing founder, best-selling author Windmeyer

(Charlotte, NC -- July 27, 2009) Campus Pride (www.campuspride.org) and CAMPUSPEAK (www.campuspeak.com) announced today a partnership between the two organizations to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and ally students at colleges and universities across the country, including exclusively representing the founder of Campus Pride Shane Windmeyer in his college speaking activities.

CAMPUSPEAK was founded in 1999 as a collegiate-based speaking agency. Based in Denver, CAMPUSPEAK has been recognized as “Agency of the Year” three times by Campus Activities Magazine. In recent years, the company has broadened its focus with interactive workshops and webinars.

Campus Pride was founded in 2001 and is based in Charlotte, NC. Campus Pride is the leading national nonprofit organization serving LGBT and ally college students and campus groups.

“The partnership makes perfect sense and brings value to Campus Pride by working closely with a company that values what we do,” Windmeyer said. “CAMPUSPEAK is a progressive-minded group committed to being an agenda-setting force in higher education, and we are simply a good match.”

Campus Pride works so hard every year to put together an awesome camp for LGBT & Ally college students from across the nation. This year (the third year) we had over 50 students in attendance and 20 faculty/student leader volunteers. Plus, we had a dozen student ambassadors from our camp host Towson University. So amazing, so much work! So much FUN!

As you might imagine, I am exhausted from a week of learning, action and friendships. Plus, I forget how uncomfortable a residence hall bed can be for five nights. So for now I am just going to share some pictures below.

Thank you to everyone who made camp possible this year – our stellar volunteers, corporate sponsors, individual donors, faculty, pride leaders, planning team and staff of Towson University – GO CAMP! Learn more online at www.campuspride.org/camp.asp

Well this is day 2 of our Campus Pride Leadership Camp and it has gotten off to an awesome start. Yesterday there was so much good energy in the room as the campers came in and met everyone and began to bond.

We started off today with a morning energizer in each of our dens to get us started. As a pride leader, this time gave me a chance to really bond with my den and get to know them. After our den time was over is was time for the campers to participate in a session entitled "Just Rescue". In this exercise, campers were given the scenario that there were 14 people on a roof and a storm was coming and there was a boat but only 10 people could get it in the boat. Campers were given the task of choosing which 10 people would get the opportunity to get on the boat. They were given a list of various people's descriptions ranging from a pregnant black woman to a person who was HIV positive to a person who held their entire life's savings with them. It was really interesting to look around and see the campers discussing reason people should and shouldn't get on the boat. At the end there was a discussion about the activity and how stereotypes could play a major role in their decisions and the feelings that this evoked. This was definitely a thought provoking and stimulating session.

From this session campers went on to "Who Am I?" which explored their identities and upbringings and how this played a part of their identity. There were so many questions around "culture" and what that meant. The discussions I heard I heard were both honest and enriching. It seemed that campers realized that there are so many different pieces that make up their own puzzle called life but that at the same time their own puzzles represent only a small piece of a much bigger picture.

ROAR! That is WELCOME in Lion speak.

I am Cris the Campus Pride Mascot. I joined the Campus Pride family during the 2007 Campus Pride Summer Leadership Camp. Camp 2009 is happening right now! You can follow us on all the happenings right here on the blog. Though I am there with them the Pride Leaders will be doing the reporting from the field, so be sure to give them support by reading their posts and commenting on them! ROAR! GO CAMP!

So right now you may be asking yourself why does Campus Pride have a mascot and secondly why is it a Lion. Well, I have a story for that! We all have stories, right? It all started when the Campus Pride staff put out a call for a Mascot. Here is the posting the staff posted on a mascot job site in 2007:

Campus Pride is looking for a very outgoing, positive, and visionary Mascot. This Mascot will be the symbol of what Campus Pride is and needs to go both inside and outside the organization, as well as be able to embody all of the LGBT Communities through the work you will do. This Mascot must also believe and follow the Campus Pride Values:

• Utilizing the diverse talents of student leaders.
• Giving students a voice and action in leadership.
• Empowering student leaders for positive change in society.
• Building stronger LGBT and Ally communities on college campuses.
• Celebrating and recognizing diversity.

The responsibilities for this position include:

• Serve on the leadership team to ensure all staff members follow and live up to the values of Campus Pride. (listed above)
• Represent Campus Pride at all events, conferences, etc that Campus Pride officially attends.

So, it's begun.

The 3rd annual Campus Pride Summer Leadership Camp has started, and what a whirlwind it's already been! I will never be able to explain how fantastic Camp is in words (it's something you MUST experience to understand), but I'm going to try my best here. My name is David, and I am from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI - yes, just like the song "I've Got A Gal In Kalamazoo". I am the President of my LGBTQA campus group there (OUTspoken) and I worked with Campus Pride this past year as a Campus Q Team blogger. I have now returned for my second year of camp as a Pride Leader - that means I have volunteered my time to help facilitate a glorious week of intense, emotional, beautiful, revealing events. And despite the fact that my flight here on Monday was at 7:00 am, I am not regretting it at all!

Camp began today bright and early at 10:30 AM (I know that's not very early, but it's still in the morning so I am calling it early) with check-in for all the campers. Our wonderful Ambassadors from Towson University took care of our campers, gave them their room keys, and sent them off to their rooms so they could unpack and prep for the day. Camp proper began at 4:00 PM with the most fabulous kick-off event you could imagine. Some Pride Leaders and the wonderful 3rd-time faculty member CM Hall got together to introduce campers to our most FAVORITE thing here at camp - CHEERS! So you can all follow along at home, the first one is:

Awesome Cheer #1:
2, 4, 6, 8, Campus Pride is super great! Campus Pride YAY!
Awesome Cheer #2:
When I say Campus, you say Pride!
Cheerleader: CAMPUS!
Campers: PRIDE!
Cheerleader: CAMPUS!
Campers: PRIDE!

See? Don't you wish you were here so you could see these amazing cheers in action? I know you do, even if you aren't thinking it right now.