For the next four days, I will be in Minnesota for first the Midwest conference and then visiting a friend. I may post some of my impressions regarding the conference, but I’ll probably be offline for most of the next four days. I’m hoping to have a chance to talk with one of the organizers of the host home program while I’m there.
All classes has been canceled for the second day in a row. Anyone know if UIUC classes have *every* been snowed out for two days in a row? I don’t thing they have. I know the last single snow day was back in the 70s or something. We’ve gotten somewhere around 16″ of snow and are expecting more. (Just my by eye estimate!)
Update 2-15-07: The last snow day was in 1979 and there have never been two consecutive snow days in the history of UIUC. Total snow fall was just over 12″ (estimated from area reports). It looks like more than that to me, but hey…
I spent the morning working on preparations for the Midwest conference this weekend and starting the ground work for the the CU GLBT Info Line mentioned yesterday. This afternoon I spent on the quad in a giant snowball fight with a bunch of friends. Hell of a blast. In a few minutes, I’m heading over to Gary’s for a “no school tomorrow so lets enjoy ourselves” party. Overall, I could start enjoying this weather. 
As a side note, I *HATE* my new Internet service provided by my landlord (Advantage Properties). We used to have great service w/McLeodUSA, but they switched us all to Insight. My connection is almost never up and when it is, its as slow as molasses!
Sunday night I attended a meeting to discuss the starting on a GLBT community center for Champaign-Urbana. I went mostly just to find out more about it and to see how promising it looked. As it happened, I got dragged right in. (Big surprise there right?) Instead of an actual community center, what is being proposed is an information phone line that would be staffed by volunteers. We’ll be working out the details over the next couple of weeks, but it seems like it might actually be workable. We’ll definitely be taking things slow though, particularly after what happened with OUTpost.
The idea of a community center was tried once before, back in 1996. Called OUTpost it lasted until mid 2000. From what I heard last night and in previous conversations, OUTpost pretty much self destructed due to internal conflict, overworking its volunteers, and (according to some) outright fraud by two of the board members. Suffice to say, we’re trying not to repeat their mistakes. That is why we’re starting out small and growing from there if needed.
Before OUTpost, there was another GLBT info line in Champaign-Urbana, but I really don’t know much about it.
The next meeting to discuss the info line is:
Saturday, February 24th at 2pm
Urbana Public Library
Take a look at this article from Wednesday’s USA Today. It’s nice to see a positive piece regarding gay teens in a major publication. They did a *really* good job with the article. I particularly liked the quote from the dad and the mention of high homelessness rates among gay teens. Its been a while since I’ve read a news article I’ve been this happy about.
Gay teens coming out earlier to peers and family
By Marilyn Elias, USA TODAY
Since this information doesn’t seem to be online anywhere else, I thought I’d post it here. I helped start this conference last year. I was the chief organizer for the UIUC conference. As such, you should all go!
To get regular updates on future conferences, please subscribe here:
http://groups.google.com/group/ilglbtcc-announce?hl=en
Illinois Collegiate LGBTQA Conference
“Queer Smarts: Honoring Diversity Through Education and Understanding”10:00am - 5:00pm on Saturday, March 31, 2007
Hosted by Spectrum Depaul at:
University Center of Chicago
525 South State Street (map)
Chicago, IL773.351.5573
spectrumdepaul@gmail.comOn March 31st, 2007, Spectrum, one of DePaul’s LGBTQIA student organizations, is hosting the bi-annual Illinois Collegiate LGBQTA Conference.
This conference is held twice a year, generally once in the Chicagoland area, and once in the greater Illinois area. The first was held at Northeastern Illinois University in Fall of 2005. The second conference of that year was held at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. This fall, Augustana College held the conference, and now Spectrum is proud to take it on.
The day will consist of three blocks of workshops relating to various aspects of LGBTQIA life, a break for lunch, and a keynote speaker.
We are looking for school’s and individuals who are willing to host workshops. These workshops can address such aspects of queer life such as bi or trans phobia, inclusion of minimized identities, event planning, or queer activism. If you are interested in hosting a workshop, e-mail us at spectrumdepaul@gmail.com.
We hope to see you all at the end of March!
For those of you on Facebook, check out the event:
http://uillinois.facebook.com/event.php?eid=2231504279
Over the last 48 hours, I’ve managed to get two large projects finished that I’ve been working on for months. The first was writing up my senior thesis and submitting it to the Illinois Journal of Undergraduate Research. Second, I mailed out the contact list I’ve been preparing for the Illinois GLBT College Conference group. It feels so good to be done. These two have been hanging over my head for what feels like forever.
From the announcement that I sent out regarding the contact list:
I just sent out the first version of the Illinois GLBTQA College Conference Contact/Network list. This list contains contact information for GLBT organizations at various Illinois schools.
If you would like to receive future versions of the list, please let me know. Anyone who previously requested a copy should have already received it. If not, please check with me.
I will not be announcing future versions of this document on this list.
Yours,
Philip Reames
reames@uiuc.edu
(Phone number removed)
Well, I for one was very disappointed with the forum last night. Not surprised mind you, just disappointed. The chancellor totally dodged the issue and wouldn’t give any statement on the Chief issue. Mind you, I can’t blame him (for that at least) too much given that he works directly for the Board of Trustees.
As for the Chancellor’s response to the question about a LGBT cultural house, his use of “sexual preference” was downright insulting, particularly given that the question used “sexual identity”. (For any who might not be aware, “sexual preference” is disliked because it implies a choice. Being gay is not a mater in which you have any choice what-so-ever. It’s simply the way you’re born.)
Check out http://www.iresist.org/ for a video of the forum. Well over 1600 folks were there. They had all of Foellinger Auditorium full, plus overflow in Greg Hall and the Union.
I really hope that at today’s racism forum that the Chancellor will make a firm statement regarding the future of Chief Illiniwek. I don’t really care that much about the issue, but enough is enough. Lets just get it over with. In the long run, the university is going to have to give up the Chief. That’s just a fact of life. So why prolong the agony? I wish they’d just save us all a lot of trouble and get it over with.