USU Eastern hosts drag show for first annual Diversity Week
Utah State University Eastern celebrated its first-ever Diversity Week during the first week of April.
In honor of this week, USU Eastern held a drag show on April 7.
USU Eastern diversity and inclusion coordinator, Michelle Mooney, organized this event and said she felt it was fitting to include the LGBTQ+ community in a large part of the events.
Gia Bianca Stephens, one of the drag queens featured in the event, is a part of this community that Mooney said is important for students to interact with.
Stephens holds the title of Miss Great Beehive State 2021, performs drag shows throughout the state and is known as Salt Lake City’s showgirl.
In fact, Mooney and Stephens were connected by their own individual networks associated with Equality of Utah, the state’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization.
“Just being on a small campus such as USU Eastern was an honor in and of itself,” Stephens said. “I love to see education systems embrace different kinds of arts and entertainment especially connected to mental health and diversity. My group and I love to be involved as much as we are able to.”
Mooney said this particular event was meant to be something unique that exposed students to different groups of people.
“With my role, I feel that it is essential to bring exposure and awareness, especially to rural communities, and bring more education about marginalized populations,” she said. “What other way than to include unique events across our first annual Diversity Week at Eastern?”
Eastern junior Jenna Sutliff agreed the campus lacks exposure to diversity and hopes to change it. She said it’s why she chose to be the Eastern Utah Student Association executive vice president in the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Center.
Sutliff explained there was some hesitation to do some activities like the drag show for fear of making anyone uncomfortable.
The idea of a drag show had been in circulation on campus originally by the Gay-Straight Alliance but never happened.
When Mooney became the diversity and inclusion coordinator, she encouraged the EUSU team to be brave. Sutliff said the example of USU’s Logan campus and Mooney’s motivation is what made the event happen.
“It was Logan. It gave us confidence to move forward and say, ‘Whatever happens, happens,’” Sutliff said. “To our surprise, we had a full house.”
There is still a long way to go and Sutliff said the majority of the impact comes later.
During the event, several students left early but many more stayed. She is hopeful there will be more inclusion on campus soon and has already started to see a change.
She encouraged other Statewide Campuses to host events like the drag show to encourage inclusivity and diversity across the state.
“For all other Statewide Campuses, if you feel unsure if you should do an event, just go for it,” Sutliff said. “Keep moving forward with events. Even if it touches one or two people, that’s touching someone.”
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-Rebecca.Olds@usu.edu
Featured photo from: Courtney Condie