From April 5 to May 24, Dartmouth is hosting Pride 2024, a series of events to celebrate the College’s LGBTQIA+ community. April events included a “queer prom,” parade and festival, while the College will offer rollerskating and other events in May, according to the Office of Pluralism and Leadership’s website.
Dartmouth celebrates pride in April and May instead of June — national pride month — so the events do not conflict with graduation and students “aren’t too stressed with finals,” according to an email statement from OPAL assistant director of LGBTQIA+ student advising Angélique Bouthot, who helped organize the events.
OPAL organized the series of events to “build community and connections” and “center the most marginalized in our communities,” Bouthot added.
The series was co-sponsored by Institutional Diversity & Equity at Dartmouth, the Special Programs and Events Committee, the geography department, the history department and the English department, according to OPAL’s website.
Around 130 people attended the April 27 parade and festival, which featured performances from Ujima Dance Troupe and the acapella group Dartmouth Rockapellas, according to Pride 2024 student co-chair Rosario Rosales ’25. The group marched from Triangle House to Kemeny courtyard, according to the OPAL website.
“I really liked that we were able to have the opportunity to be out and about and sort of loud on campus to display queer joy out to the community,” Rosales said.
Dick’s House also offered a sexually transmitted disease testing clinic at the festival, according to the OPAL website.
Pride 2024 student co-chair Felipe Mendonça ’27, who hails from Sao Paulo, Brazil, said he wanted the events to emulate the “amazing” atmosphere of the pride parade in his hometown — which he said is the largest in the world.
“When I got here, I wanted to create those spaces as well,” Mendonça said. “I was excited to see what I could do regarding Pride at Dartmouth, especially because we have a big queer community here.”
Rosales said she and Mendonça organized the queer prom, which was held on April 13, with Colby Sawyer College, Plymouth State University and Franklin Pierce University. Around 10 students from each school drove to Hanover for the prom in Collis Common Ground, which had dancing, a raffle and food.
Linden Schaefer ’25, who is a member of the Alpha Theta gender-inclusive Greek house, said other gender-inclusive Greek spaces came together to support the events.
“There were definitely a lot of people from gender-inclusive Greek houses [at the parade],” she said. “I think that gender-inclusive Greek spaces can be a gathering place for queer people.”
Queer students at the College face unique difficulties, according to Bouthot.
“While [all] people face some challenges in community building, [those challenges] can show up in a particular way here because of how Dartmouth is unique, such as our rural location or the way the student community shifts through the D-plan,” she wrote.
Next year, Rosales said she wants to encourage more collaboration with other student organizations that “may align with our values.” She said she hopes future Dartmouth pride celebrations can “close the streets of Hanover so a lot of students can march on the streets.”
“I definitely want to see more engagement and connection,” she said.
Correction Appended (May 7, 10:46 p.m.): A previous version of this article incorrectly stated Linden Schaefer's pronouns.
