The University is moving forward with a proposal to create a full-time staff position and center in the interest of gender and sexuality. According to Senior Vice President of Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel at a March 20 roundtable discussion, the University is looking for a space for the center in the Usdan Student Center.

According to Flagel in an email to the Justice, "the LGBTQIA position and Gender and Sexuality Center that students requested through a campus-wide vote was my top priority in this year's budget."

Flagel wrote that the budget that the Board of Trustees approved last week includes the funding for this full-time position. He added that, with the approval of the budget, he will ask Dean of Students Jamele Adams to begin working with our community to "craft the specifics of the position and center."

In regard to whether the position will be a director or coordinator position, Flagel wrote that "[d]ecisions about the nature of the position will be made collaboratively with our community members, and timelines will follow those decisions."

The initial proposal for the center and full-time position was put forth by Alex Thomson '15, junior representative to the Board of Trustees. The task force that created the proposal also included Margaret Bouchard '14 of the Queer Resource Center, Molly Gimbel '16, representing Triskelion, Michael Pizziferri '15 of the Queer Policy Alliance and Sara Brande '15 from TransBrandeis, according to an Oct. 15, 2013 Justice article.

The Senate voted unanimously in support of the proposal in October. After receiving the Senate's statement of support, the administration was left to incorporate and implement the proposal for the center, which would provide support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities by way of education and outreach programming, as well as a full-time directorial position for the center.

According to the Oct. 15 article, Thomson estimated the cost for this project would fall between $85,000 to $90,000 annually, an amount to be taken from the department of Students and Enrollment's budget. As it stood, the plan would allocate $30,000 annually for the center and $55,000 to $60,000, which was described as a "competitive salary," for the director of the center, according to Thomson.

According to Thomson in an interview with the Justice, he purposely brought the idea up to the Board in October, about six months before they were to finalize the budget, in order for it to be incorporated in the budget for the following fiscal year. "The way it was discussed in October was [under] the impression that it was moving forward. I mean, that was certainly the way it was presented to the board," said Senior Representative to the Board of Trustees Jack Hait '14 in an interview with Justice.

Although Thomson said that he has been involved in the process since the beginning, he said that, other than the fact that the position's existence has been officially announced to the Provost Diversity Committee and that the University is looking for a space for the center, he is not aware of the current status of the project. "That is as much as I know as of now, honestly," said Thomson. "I'm unaware of if there will be space this year or a center this year. I'm just aware of the official announcement for the full-time position." According to Hait, neither the position nor the center was discussed at the March Board meeting.

Thomson said that the proposal was written before Jessica Pedrick filled the position for part-time sexuality and gender diversity coordinator at the Intercultural Center, according to the Oct. 15 article. Pedrick filled the position after it was vacated by Jessamine Beal at the end of the last academic year. However, he said that "we envision that, from our interactions with her, she's very great, already a great resource, so we would envision her taking on the full-time role."

In response to questions about whether or not Pedrick would be considered for the position or how her current position would relate to the center, Flagel returned to his initial statement, holding that "decisions about the nature of the position will be made collaboratively with our community members."
Adams did not respond to requests for comment regarding how he plans to accomplish this task and how he sees his role in establishing the center and the position by press time.