Last weekend the LGBT Resource Center at the University of California San Diego held it’s third annual Alumni Brunch. This year’s brunch celebrated the school’s history of GLBT scholarship and included the unveiling of plans for the new LGBT Resource Center, scheduled to open in the fall of 2005.

Currently there are four scholarships made available specifically for the GLBT community on campus. The Michael L. Marx and Donald K. Marshall Scholarship for Gay and Lesbian Students targets individuals at the sophomore, junior, or senior level with a strong academic record, with preference given to students with demonstrated financial need. The Russ Ty Scholarship is for GLBT students and is based solely on academic merit. The Christopher B. Arrott Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Endowed Scholarship is for undergraduate students with a record of active service and involvement in the GLBT community. The UCSD LGBT Resource Center Undergraduate Scholarship is the most recent addition, established last year by an anonymous benefactor.

“That’s a brand new scholarship that was created this past spring because there was a person who saw the need, but wanted it to be the center’s,” said Shaun Travers, director of the UCSD LGBT Resource Center. “So the center has responsibility for it and ownership over it. It was funded for the first year by that person, but it’s not going to continue to be endowed, so it’s this wonderful way that we as a community can come together to raise the funds for that scholarship each year.”

The LGBT Resource office will begin to highlight the scholarship program this year to begin raising funds for the annual presentation at the end of the school year. Individuals interested in donating to the scholarship fund can contact Travers via the LGBT Resource Center on campus at (858) 822-3493.

In addition to highlighting the GLBT scholarship program on campus, the Alumni Brunch also was a showcase for the architectural renderings and floor plans for the new UCSD LGBT Resource Center. The on-campus resource office was originally founded in 1999 in the old student center and was moved to a temporary location in 2002, where it doubled in size to 926 square feet. The new center will be housed in a new two-story building that will be a built-in conjunction with the renovation and expansion of the old student center on campus. The center’s space will double in size to over 1,800 square feet of office and meeting space on the second floor of the building. The first floor will contain additional meeting areas, including an outdoor meeting area that will be available for the center’s use.

“We’re one of the biggest [on-campus centers],” said Travers. There are some larger ones over on the east coast, but they were funded by alumni through donations. This is a building that is similar to other buildings you see being built on campus, like the expansion of the school of medicine. It’s just part of the understanding of what is important to the UC system and to UCSD. The fact that we are recognized as important and valued by the UCSD community just speaks volumes to the commitment to diversity and the LGBT community.”

Travers and the staff of the LGBT Resource Center worked with the university during the interview process with the architects to make sure that the new center met the needs of the community by providing a public space that’s very visible but also private enough for people to feel comfortable and safe.

“Once the architects were hired, we were having those discussions and talking about the space as a home for the LGBT community,” Travers said. “It’s a center, but it functions like a home, and the architects really bought into that and really worked with us to create that space and that feel for it.”

The project is expected to be completed in the fall of 2005, in time for the new school year.