For the first time ever Marquette University hosted their first ever Pride Prom. The slogan was Be Proud Be You Pride Prom 2018. This is a huge step for the LGBT+ community at Marquette University.
With a leap like this, it seems that Marquette has changed its conservative ways to accept a more diverse culture, but has it really made the changes to accept the LGBT+ community on its campus?
As one of the planners for Pride Prom 2018, I saw first hand some of the backlash that came about from the outside community. Even with multiple student organizations sponsoring the events, and many community members as well, it seemed that Pride Prom was rubbing some people the wrong way
The TFP, which is an organization known to help keep traditional family values on college campuses throughout the country, started a petition to stop Pride Prom. The petition collected over 18,000 signatures from outside community members and former alumni. When this petition arose back in 2017 it was frightening to many people who wanted Pride Prom to continue, but the University stood behind the LGBT+ resource center and made it known that the event will happen no matter what.
Ticketing started back in March of this year, and the one concern that the planning team had was figuring out how many people would actually come. Once ticketing opened up to Marquette and the outside community it started slow and picked up the pace from there.
In total there were over 330 tickets sold to this event. At the last planning meeting, we were all thrilled to see the number jump to that and knew that this event was the start of something new at Marquette University.
The night before Pride Prom I was searching the internet and found out Pride Prom had made national news. It was on the New York Times, Fox News, and the Associated Press. This caused me some concern because I did not think an event like this hosted at Marquette University would make such headlines.
The fact of the matter it did is because of the petition that was started back in 2017. From that point, my major concern was security and the safety of the patrons that were going to come to the event.
The event was hosted on April 14th, 2018 in the AMU 3rd floor ballroom. The beautiful sight of the many different colors that are represented on the LGBT+ flag greeted your eyes when you entered the space. The event had performances from The Golden Blues, Hype Dance Company, and Dance Inc. Marquette.
In total over 230 people came to the event even though the weather outside was worse for the wear. It brought a twinkle to my eyes to see so many people with different backgrounds being able to just enjoy themselves and be proud of who they are.
So back to the main question I posed at the beginning of my story. Has Pride Prom really changed the ways of Marquette University to accept a more diverse culture on campus? The answer to that question would be, I do not know.
From my experience, it takes time for change to happen. We all wish that it could happen over-night but sadly it could not. I do believe however that this was a step in the right direction and I was very proud to be able to be on the planning committee for the first every Pride Prom at Marquette University.