May. 24, 2016
Rainbow Flag Flies over Barge Hall for Pride Week
CWU President James L. Gaudino helped raise a rainbow flag, the symbol of LGBT pride, during a ceremony Monday. The event kicks off Pride Week, May 30-June 4, which celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community. This year's theme is "One Proud World."
“You have to have people of different types. Different ethnicities, different orientations, different racial backgrounds, different life experiences,” Gaudino said. “But maybe even more importantly they have to feel safe to express themselves. And that’s what inclusivity means.”
The rainbow flag on Barge Hall is saying to everyone on campus, “You are valued at Central Washington University. You are safe here physically and just as importantly you are safe here emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually and we want your participation. Because the reality is, you are teaching us as much as we are teaching you,” Gaudino said.
A complete list of Pride Week events on campus is available at cwu.edu/equal/prideweek.
Campus Pride, a leading national nonprofit working to encourage safe campuses for LGBT students, named CWU one of the top 50 LGBT-friendly universities in the nation. Additionally, CWU was the only four-year university in Washington to receive the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award in 2015 (and the only to receive it two years in a row).
May 24, 2016