According to Brown, Pride events occur throughout the world and usually take place in the spring. Some last for only a day; others span entire months. Their purpose is to celebrate Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender pride and raise awareness about LGBT issues.
Beginning last spring, Brown and several others have worked to develop a Dartmouth Pride celebration. Brown chaired the PRIDE 2007 planning committee, whose other members include Raymond Rodriguez '09, Dina Warren '10 and Rigel Cable '10.
PRIDE 2007, hosted by the Gay Straight Alliance, is a Dartmouth-specific week-long series of events meant to raise awareness about the LGBT community's experience throughout Dartmouth's history.
"My main focus is to be as Dartmouth specific as possible," Brown said. "Most people think there's no LGBT history here. But there is, and it's rich and interesting. I want to show people Dartmouth's LGBT history -- show how things have changed, and how things still might need to change."
Brown said the GSA sought money for PRIDE 2007 from as many sources as possible. The top five donations came from COSO, Programming Board, the Bildner Endowment, a joint contribution from the President's Office and Dean of College Office, and the Assembly, who gave sums of $10,030.20, $5,000, $4,000, $2,000 and $1,500 respectively. The Assembly promised their allotment during a meeting Tuesday night.
The rest of the money came from the Collis Governing Board, the Office of Residential Life, the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity, Greek organizations and various other student groups.
"My goal in raising money was to hit every single group on campus, affiliated and non-affiliated, to get a diverse support group so that we can bring people together," Brown said. "I think the great sponsoring for PRIDE shows that the College needs and wants this event."
The money raised for PRIDE 2007 has been spent on the events scheduled for the week. Events range from barbecues to alumni speakers, such as Keith Boykin '87, who spoke about "Race, Queerness, and Sexuality" on Tuesday night, and Joanne Hermann '75, a transgender alumna who is scheduled to speak on Thursday. PRIDE spent nearly $8,500 to bring Boykin and Hermann to campus.
Tonight's Lwala Benefit Concert will feature student dance and a cappella performance groups, as well as shows by the lesbian slam poet Staceyann Chin and drag queen Kevin Aviance. The cost to produce the benefit concert rounded out around $16,500, with $15,000 going to Aviance, Brown said in the Assembly meeting.
All proceeds from the concert's ticket sales are promised to the Lwala Project, a charity created by Fred Ochieng '05 and Milton Ochieng '04 that provides health care, clean water and HIV/AIDS education to a poor village in Kenya.
The group ACORN -- short for A Community Resource Network -- will conduct free HIV testing on Thursday. Friday is PRIDE solidarity day, where Dartmouth community members are encouraged to wear PRIDE shirts and memorabilia to express solidarity with the LGBT community. PRIDE week will end Friday night with a dinner gala, during which the committee plans to show a film they have made about the Dartmouth LGBT experience and how it has changed through Dartmouth history.
The dinner gala is an extension of an LGBT graduation dinner tradition that usually occurs during Green Key weekend. The initial cost of the PRIDE week dinner was around $9,000, but because the PRIDE 2007 committee could not raise enough money, dinner expenses have reduced to around $6,000. With nearly 140 people attending the dinner, the GSA expects to spend around $40 per head.
"The students have worked especially hard this year to partner with Alumni Relations and get them to help out with inviting alums," Pam Misener, assistant dean of student life and advisor to LGBT students said. "We're not always able to do that. We actually sent out invitations this year -- like actual, written invitations as opposed to the e-mail stuff we normally do."
Misener said that alumni from Boston, New York, and elsewhere are planning to attend and that this year's guest list is significantly larger than the annual dinner's usual 40 attendees. She also said that bringing together a larger body of LGBT alumni provides a stronger sense of community for both LGBT students and alumni alike.
"To have openly gay alums from the class of 1958, from the '60s and '70s willing to come back to campus, it's just huge," Misener said. "And sometimes alums bring their kids, and for current students to see that is really powerful. It really is a community in the broadest sense."
Throughout his months of organizing, fundraising and awareness-raising efforts, Brown has emphasized that PRIDE 2007 is not intended for only one subset of people at the College.
"This isn't for the LGBT community," Brown said. "This is for Dartmouth."
