With over 3,800 people in attendance, Club Rush remains one of the most active and student-involved events on campus. It featured 105 clubs and was held Sept. 13-14 in the Grande Ballroom.
Andre Jones, the chief justice of the UVUSA Student Council, mentioned that one of the incentives of joining a club is to get students who want to find their passion on campus and connect with other people involved. “It’s a great way to promote student success through networking,” Jones said.
The students of Spectrum: Queer Student Alliance and UVU Radio both had booths at Club Rush and plan to assert their ambitions after past challenges.
The Spectrum: Queer Student Alliance Club is a safe space and support environment for LGBTQ students at UVU. The club provides social and educational advocacy efforts, as well as inquiry panels, events, meetings and services.
The event is held not just for the purpose of socializing through participating in extracurricular activities, but it’s also a way to become involved in politics.
Skylar Ostler, president of the Spectrum: Queer Student Alliance, mentioned how members of the club continue to fight for social justice by opposing the “no promo homo” laws in Utah. The club is working with Equality Utah to help overturn these laws, which prevent K-12 teachers from speaking about LGBTQ rights and issues in a positive light.
“If a student goes up and says ‘hey teacher, I’m gay and I’m depressed and really struggling,’ The teacher can only say, ‘okay go talk to this therapist.’ The teacher can’t send them to the school counselors, because the counselors can’t say anything,” Ostler said.
These types of laws suggest that the solution to LGBTQ issues is to ignore them. Another goal of the Spectrum Alliance is to demand “medically-accurate sex education in schools,” according to Ostler.
There will be a new LGBTQ resource center called Encircle in Provo, which is expected to open Nov. 1. Encircle will focus on safe social advocacy and education for parents to help open critical dialogue.
“Especially with the community we live in, lots of parents may not know how to react to their LGBT children, so it offers a great kind of resource to those parents who may be unsure. Do they accept their kid for being LGBT? What kind of line do they go down?” Ostler said.
The UVU Radio club is a student run radio station. After some setbacks due to disorganization, Kyle McGuire, president of the radio station, sees a productive semester ahead.
“After a few years of being down, we’re now just barely getting back up,” McGuire said.
Before now, the staff didn’t have control of the content. The radio station was run outside of the university by an online service provider.
They plan to run the station on their own, with the content up to the students. “We want to have a very diverse radio station. We want to have all walks of the university, from social, to election hour, LGBT hour and more,” McGuire said.
UVU Radio club hopes to obtain the goal of an official radio license. The station would become a nonprofit educational station. “It’s just a flick of the switch and we’re on,” McGuire said.
To McGuire, radio is far from dead, “We want content, shows, music, poetry, etc. Right now, the official station is just a computer running constant music. There’s no live DJ. There’s nothing interactive.” The UVU Radio club welcomes students who are interested in either the creative or the technical side to join.
Both clubs on campus will make profound progression this semester in terms of political voice and presence.
“The Spectrum: Queer Student Alliance Club is a safe space and support environment…”
As someone who is being threatened by these students, nah. No it’s not.
“…members of the club continue to fight for social justice”
Because targeting someone due to their autism spectrum disorder is fighting for social justice.
“If a student goes up and says ‘hey teacher, I’m gay and I’m depressed and really struggling”
The purpose of an educator is to challenge their students, to think critically. Also school councilors are to help the kids in areas of academic achievement and career development. Yes they may have some training in psychology but thats not their forte. The reason why councilors cant talk to these kids is not because they’re gay, is because depression is a serious mental illness that may require them to see a therapist.