Wilson College Allies Club Hosts Ally Week
Allies Club has recently hosted a small celebration of Ally Week, a week celebrating the allies of the LGBTQ+ community. This year, it fell between September 23 through September 27. The club had a table in Lenfest with fun stickers to support our fellow LGBTQ+ students on campus! The club also featured a petition to sign declaring yourself as an ally for anyone to sign throughout the week.
The movement was started by an organization called GLSEN, pronounced “glisten,” in 1990 by a group of teachers in Massachusetts who believed the way to stop students from bullying other students of the LGBT community was to be active in their allyship. That movement has grown into a global phenomenon, and Ally Week is celebrated from K-12 in schools, and in most colleges today.
On their official webpage, GLSEN states that their mission is “to ensure that LGBTQ students are able to learn and grow in a school environment free from bullying and harassment” (GLSEN). The way they accomplish this is through conducting their own research for students K-12, creating their own resources for educators to use in the classroom, and partnering with multiple organizations and student-led groups to promote active allyship on the student and corporate level of school districts and colleges everywhere.
For more information on GLSEN, they can be found at www.glsen.org. For more information about how you can be more active on campus in your allyship, you can email Allies Club president Molly Lemke (‘20) at molly.lemke@wilson.edu.