Safe Zone Training

Project: Safe-Zone is a program to provide individuals with a "safe" place where they can go and talk about issues that concern them and not be judged. Faculty, staff and students can request signs on their doors. The signs state that the occupant is:

• One who will be understanding, supportive and trustworthy if a queer student or colleague needs help, advice or just someone to whom they can talk.
• One who avoids heterosexist assumptions, confronts homophobia and uses inclusive language.
• One who believes that our campus is enriched by the diversity of queer people.

Safe Zones are also places to discuss nonviolence issues and women's issues in a safe environment.

Safe Zone is now a cooperative effort with the Women's Center, Counseling Services, and the GLBT Faculty / Staff Group. Please visit the new Safe Zone website at www.ksu.edu/nonviolence/safezone.

Speaker Panels

QSA coordinates bisexual, gay, lesbian and transgendered speaker panels for many KSU courses, residence halls, Education Symposium for Educators, human development classes, university experience classes, social work classes, SHAPE and even an off-campus church youth group, and other community groups.

The panels are designed to give students a chance to ask questions that might have come up in class, conversations with family or friends or just burning curiosities they might have about gay people or equal rights. It is designed to be a group discussion about some of the experiences of being gay, lesbian and bisexual. Speaker Panels are our most effective way to create a more tolerant environment.

On each panel we try to have a bisexual, lesbian and gay person who is comfortable with their sexual orientation. We do explain to the class that those on the panel do not represent every bisexual, gay, lesbian or transgendered person any more than anyone of them could represent every K-Stater or member of their sorority, fraternity or major. We are there to try and give students a general idea of some of our experiences and feelings.

Professors and GTA's have used our panels to reinforce classroom instruction. Residence Hall personnel have called us in to do a panel to help deal with difficult situations in their halls and to open up the lines of communication among residents.

If you are interested please email qsa@ksu.edu for more information.