ECSU takes pride in new facility

By MICHELLE FIRESTONE
Chronicle Correspondent
Faculty, staff and students of Eastern Connecticut State Univer-sity demonstrated their pride in the university Thursday at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Pride Room in the Student Center.

The Pride Room, a resource room for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students at Eastern, was created out of a desire to create a comfortable place for those individuals.

Faculty and students who spoke at the ceremony demonstrated their support for the project.

“It’s a very moving occasion,” said Elsa Nuñez, president of the university.
Nuñez she said she never cried harder for anyone she didn’t know than she did for Matthew Shepard, a gay 21-year-old student at the University of Wyoming who was murdered in 1998 by homophobic killers.

She is pleased about the project and optimistic about the future of the university.

“This is a small beginning,” Nuñez said. “This is not what we want the end to be.”

Various faculty, staff and students involved in the project expressed their shock at the turnout for the event.

“It’s amazing that there are so many people here they couldn’t fit in the room,” said Jennifer Succi of Thompson, a senior at Eastern and secretary of Allies, one of two organizations at Eastern for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals.

Kenneth Bedini, interim vice president of student affairs, said the process of putting the room together began last December when students submitted a proposal to four or five committees on campus.

Those involved in the project are in the process of acquiring resources for a somewhat bare room that is home to a few leather coaches, a flat-screen television and bookshelves with just a few books on them.

“It’s a work in progress,” Bedini said.
Bedini said the university plans to eventually close the room and create an entire “pride” sector, as they have done for all of the campus’ cultural centers.

Jennifer Paradis, a sociology major from Vernon who graduated last December, was one of the students involved in the project.

She and Succi, her partner of six months, were very enthusiastic about the vision becoming a reality.

“It’s a good way for students who didn’t have a comfortable place to hang out to have a part in something,” Succi said.

“I’m so overwhelmed,” Paradis said, referring to the event’s turnout. “It shows the community what Eastern has.”

As a student at Eastern, Paradis was vice president of Allies. She said she was lucky enough to have parents who supported her when she came out her junior year of college.

“My parents are open people. It was fine,” Paradis said. “It was done over pineapple pizza.”

Bedini, a speaker at the ceremony, said he feels it is responsibility of liberal arts universities such as Eastern to partake in projects such as the Pride Room.

He said he is proud of what his university has accomplished.

“I think as a liberal arts university it’s certainly part of the fabric of what our university is about,” Bedini said.