New director of LGBT Resource Center makes strides toward change
Courtesy Photo / Colette Seguin Beighly New LGBT Center Director, Colette Seguin Beighly, pictured with local author Wade Rouse at one of the LGBT Writer’s Workshops.
Feb 3, 2011
When the first lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy office opened up in Grand Rapids, it was because of Colette Seguin Beighley. When Grand Valley State University was the recipient of Michigan’s highest award honoring advocacy on behalf of the LGBT communities, she helped. When Dean of Students Bart Merkle offered Seguin Beighley the job, was hired as GVSU’s new director of the LGBT Resource Center.
“Colette is a talented, collaborative individual who cares deeply about students,” Merkle said. “She is an effective leader, advisor, educator, and advocate for students who infuses our LGBT Resource Center with positive energy – I am delighted to have her as a colleague on our leadership team in Student Services.”
Seguin Beighley said her top goal as the new director is to get students’ voices involved in creating a center that supports personal growth and academic achievement while encouraging them to be a vehicle for change; partly by implementing a series of focus groups, three of which have already been conducted and two scheduled for this month.
“Because our LGBTQ students, faculty and staff do not yet have equal rights, it is important to educate our student body about this inequity and help them understand their role both in how things change as well as how things stay the same,” she said.
Following the focus groups, the Center will pull together a group of LGBTQ students, faculty and staff that will help Seguin Beighley and the rest of the resource center in advising the creation of a new strategic plan. The information collected from the focus groups will play a major role in the development of the plan.
Seguin Beighley said that she and the rest of the center are “all about change.”
“It’s most rewarding to watch our students get a sense of their own vision for how they want the world to be. I love seeing them become empowered and feel as though they can make a difference because they absolutely can.”
Seguin Beighley first came to GVSU in January of 2009 as the Assistant Director after GVSU expanded their anti-discrimination policy to include gender identity and expression.
Since then, GVSU has won the Catalyst Award, the highest award given in the state of Michigan for advocacy on behalf of the LGBTQ communities.
