The First Ever UA Event to Celebrate LGBTQ and Allied Graduating Students!

Wednesday, May 7, 2008
7:00-8:30 pm
Pima Hall
(1340 E. 1st Street, corner of 1st & Highland)

This fun, informal end-of-the-year Celebration will provide personal recognition and celebration of graduating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and allied seniors, graduate school and professional school students at The University of Arizona. Each graduate will receive a rainbow tassel and certificate of honor. A reception will follow.

This event is free and open to UA campus community and Southern Arizona community. If you are graduating (or graduated in December), please join us -- and bring your family, friends, favorite faculty and staff…

And for community members -- please join us in congratulating our graduates, and help us show them how proud we are. 

If you are a graduating student (undergrad, grad, professional school) and would like to be recognized by your community, please do the following: 

1. RSVP by Friday, April 18^th to Cathy Busha (Director of LGBTQ Affairs at The University of Arizona) at cbusha@email.arizona.edu
    
2. In your RSVP, please include the following information:
   1. -your name (as you’d like it to appear on your certificate)
      -your college
      -your favorite quote
      This quote will be included as part of a powerpoint presentation that will be shown at the event. It could be an inspirational quote, a fun quote, a sweet quote, words you live by…it’s up to you…
      -an electronic picture of yourself
      This photo will also be included as part of the powerpoint presentation. The picture may be formal or casual.
      
   2. As a graduating student, you may select someone who will attend the Celebration with you, and present you your rainbow tassel and certificate. The person you select will have one minute to read your name and say something nice about you. This person could be a friend, family member, professor, mentor, neighbor, etc. It’s up to you.  If you’d like, Cathy Busha would also be happy to be the person who gives you your certificate and rainbow tassel.
      
   3. Finally, if you could forward this email to other graduating LGBTQ and Allied students, we would greatly appreciate it!

If you are not graduating, but would like to attend this historic event, please RSVP Cathy Busha at cbusha@email.arizona.edu with your name and the names of guests who will attend the event with you. 

Also, UA LGBTQ and Allied non-graduating students, alumni, staff, and faculty are encouraged to attend—we would like to recognize and celebrate you, too, during the Celebration! 

The event will be emceed by the fabulous female illusionist
Lucinda Holliday

 We are so pleased and honored to announce that
University of Arizona alumnus (1960) Ernie McCray
is the keynote speaker for the event 

Ernie McCray was born in Tucson, Arizona at St. Mary’s Hospital on April 18th, 1938. As Ernie writes in his bio, “A line on my birth certificate assigned me to the COLORED race, and by the time I exhaled, my mother and I were rolled out of St. Mary’s Hospital into a world where COLORED race meant: a long row to hoe.”  

Ernie is a retired educator who served the San Diego Unified School District 37 years as a teacher, vice-principal, and principal of schools from elementary through high school (28 years). He has been an outspoken ally and activist on behalf of the LGBTQ community. A Tucson High graduate, Ernie was a star basketball player at The University of Arizona, and still holds the UA school record for the most points scored in a game (46 points on February 6, 1960).   

Ernie still works with children in his retirement in areas of drama and creative writing and movement. He is a peace activist who is currently working against the militarization of students in JROTC programs in their schools, a civil and human rights activist who currently is working to make schools safe for LGBTQ youth as a member of GLSEN and works through Boy Scouts for All to get the city of San Diego to stop allowing Boy Scouts of America to operate on prime city property in his community.

In 2002, Ernie testified to the California State Senate on the importance of addressing LGBT discrimination at the elementary school level. As Mr. McCray stated, “Unfortunately schools reflect society. Gay jokes and putdowns surface in the teachers' lounge as they do in other workplaces in our society, and as it is in those other places, the inappropriateness of such actions is rarely challenged or even discussed. Compounding the problem at the elementary level is society's generally held view that young children aren't ready to learn about sexual matters. But I have dealt with five and six year olds who have called their classmates "faggots" and "homos" fully understanding the sexual connotations in their teasing, defending their actions, matter-of-factly, with: "Because he runs like a girl," or "Well, she acts just like a boy."…And the persecuted cower in corners of the school building rather than play, or spend his or her day in the counselor's office rather than in the classroom. And since it's elementary school, it's just beginning. Life will become more cruel for many as the years go by. The children are more than ready. They've learned our negative attitudes about gay people quite well. It's the adults who aren't ready and who are in dire need of training that can help them make a difference in such a climate of disrespect. Schools, I think, should lead society more so than reflect it.”

Ernie has won many awards and honors in his life but high among them, he says, is being on the Wall of Fame at his beloved Tucson High for his contributions to the world, and giving the baccalaureate address to Tucson High’s graduating class of 2000. Ernie shared that he is honored to be selected as the keynote speaker for the first-ever UA LGBTQ Celebration of Graduates. As a father, grandfather, great-grandfather, husband, educator, community activist, writer, and actor, Ernie rises everyday to do all that he can to make the world a better place.