The Stonewall Resource Center held elections recently for the 2018-19 cabinet. The new additions will be Kyle Lindsey ’19 as the Space and Library Coordinator, Connor Stanfield ’21 as the Events Coordinator and Tucker Haddock ’21 as the Logistics Coordinator.
For Lindsey, this position was a natural fit, as he regularly uses the library space as a Library Monitor and had applied for the position in past years. As Library Coordinator, Lindsey will be responsible for general maintenance of the SRC as well as library management.
Lindsey already has an extensive list of things he hopes to do for the space, both new and old.
“Plans I have for the space include maintenance, updating the catalog, getting books that people are requesting and I’m trying to perhaps create an online component of the SRC library, or just resources in general. … Getting a wider range of resources would [be easier] if we had a centralized place where I could [collect] documents, links and other websites,” Lindsey said.
Stanfield decided to run for Events Coordinator after finding that he enjoyed planning events he had hosted in the SRC. In this position, he will host events within the SRC for the different affinity groups that meet and bringing speakers to campus.
“At the beginning of this year I hosted a party in the SRC, sort of a welcome back party to reintroduce a lot of people to the space and what resources were available here, as well as connect first years to students of different class years. And I also helped with Mary B. James and Drag Show, so it was just a natural [fit for me to] keep doing events and that sort of thing,” Stanfield said.
Stanfield plans to make the SRC as welcoming as possible. He hopes to accomplish this task through planning events for different identity groups, allowing them to establish a relationship with the physical space of the SRC.
“I want to make this space and sort of the whole environment as welcoming as I can,” he said.
Haddock felt that Logistics Coordinator was the best fit for them after their experience at a leadership conference. This position oversees budgeting large events and streamlining various processes.
“A really big catalyst for me wanting to run for Logistics Coordinator was that I was lucky enough to attend the Creating Change Conference at the beginning of this system. It was a queer activist leadership conference in Washington, D.C. So I really had this deep understanding of how that could change a person’s perception of what it means to be queer, how they fit into the queer community, and how issues that I think initially don’t seem related to the queer community can be related to it,” they said.
They hope to continue this experience for students to attend leadership conferences, such as the Creating Change Conference and more that examine other issues and identities with queerness.
Lindsey, Stanfield and Haddock all agree that the SRC is important as it is the first established space for affinity groups that they have experienced as Grinnellians.
“I realized the potential that queerness in general could mean, because I feel like I’ve learned a lot about queerness while being here, but really understanding how institutional support can make a difference in constructing queer community in a space,” Lindsey said.
“Coming to [the SRC], I’m reminded of the power and the value that part of myself has,” Haddock added.
Lindsey, Stanfield and Haddock all have plans to make the SRC more inclusive and accessible to all gender and sexual identities.
“The different affinity groups within the SRC is one of the ways we ensure that the SRC doesn’t stay for just people of a select few gender identities or sexualities,” Stanfield said. “I think that these affinity groups help to ensure that there’s a lot of diversity within queerness being brought into the SRC.”
The physical space of the SRC provides multiple physical barriers for accessibility. While leaders of the SRC have tried to circumvent these obstacles, there is only so much they can do.
“Short of getting our own building, we cannot be accessible,” said Ric Tennenbaum ’18, one of the SRC’s current coordinators.
However, despite the drawbacks of the physical space of the SRC, the organization still actively works to support the institutional memory of queer people on campus. For Stanfield, the link between SRC alumni and current students is the greatest indicator of this institutional memory.
The library serves this purpose as well.
“If students make zines, we can keep them. … We also have video recordings of drag shows, we also have digital archives of all the events we’ve had, and we also keep news clippings from The S&B. And that’s been really essential to really remember our history, who specifically has done very important things,” Tennenbaum said. “We have the physical documentation and people can peruse it, and it’s up to our monitors and our staff to dig it up and do that work and make it accessible.”
“I’m so excited for what [this group] will do,” Tennenbaum said.
