Coming Out Week concluded Friday as members of Triskelion, Brandeis's GLBTQS organization, set up a giant closet door in front of the Usdan Student Center to celebrate National Coming Out Day. Club leaders, members and students passing by danced to boom box music to end nine days of events, which included a comedian, a dance, a movie night and a celebratory dinner."All the feedback I have received has been incredibly positive," Triskelion General Coordinator Leslie Meltzer '03 said. "The community was impressed by the number and quality of events."

Last Tuesday evening, Triskelion held a coffeehouse in Cholmondley's, which featured an open microphone and Brandeis student performers. "The coffeehouse was a blast," Triskelion Social Coordinator Aaron Schwid '05 said. "The acts were entertaining. Mark Lipman wowed the audience with his magical voice and Swallow the Leader was noisy and fun."

An event billed as a "Coming Out Story Swap" was held in the Triskelion office Wednesday to allow students a chance to retell experiences of coming out and to provide a forum for students to come out themselves. The event was met with mixed emotions. "The story swap made people very uncomfortable," Schwid said. "Even in as open a group as Triskelion is, coming out is so personal it's hard to discuss."

Thursday evening, Triskelion held its annual Big Queer Dinner in the Shapiro Campus Center Multipurpose Room, with free food from a local Thai restaurant. "The Multipurpose room was so full, people were sitting on the floor," Schwid said.

The event also highlighted a week in which a number of events saw large turnouts of straight students. "The Big Queer Dinner was probably 75 percent straight," Schwid said.

One hitch in the week came Friday, Oct. 4, when the President's office requested that a 25-foot condom Triskelion had placed in the Shapiro Campus Center be removed. Dr. John Hose, spokesman for President Reinharz explained that the President's office request the condom be removed to protect the sensitivities of certain members of the Board of Trustees who were attending a meeting that day. "I explained to (Aaron Schwid) that we were a little concerned," Hose said. "There is a generational difference here . it was a question of trying to be sensitive to people's comfort level, while at the same time to the organizers of the event."

"It made me very uncomfortable that the school would have to hide anything from the Board of Trustees," Schwid said. "They should know what actually happening in their school and what

is important to their students." The condom, put up to raise awareness for a charity dance to support AIDS Awareness, was moved to Usdan for the remainder of the day.

"Hanging the condom in Usdan was incredibly effective in getting people psyched about CONTROL (the Coming Out Week Dance)," Meltzer said. "I don't necessarily agree with censorship, but I can't say (President Reinharz) did us a disservice by forcing us to hang it in a more high-profile location."

The organizers of the week, regardless, were pleased with the outcome of the week's events. "I think people will definitely see us as an organization worth getting involved in," Meltzer said at the conclusion of the week. "We hold fun events that draw a large intersection of the community."

"It was our goal this week to ... give everyone a chance to see what Triskelion is all about," she said.

Schwid had another take on what he said he felt was a successful week. "Overall, the straight supporters helped make this the successful week it was," he said. "The existence of the week itself is by far the most important part of it," Meltzer said. "Queer awareness is essential to a campus that claims to address tolerance, diversity, and social justice."

And, regardless of the request to remove the condom, Meltzer was pleased with the University administration's dealings with the club during the week. "The upper levels of the administration were generally very supportive of all of our events," she said, "indicating that they too recognize this need (for a Coming Out Week).