First Day of School

Yesterday we had our first UNIV100 class. Today we will meet our second section. So far, we have 13 students total that are enrolled in both classes. It is far short of what we had hoped, but there are a lot of institutional barriers that we won't ever be able to break through to get the mass of students we really want.

Either way we are really excited to get started and to meet our students and help them have a great time here at Maryland. We have some good things lined up for the semester and are still really excited for all of our events.

We have our first meeting with our first set of presenters for The L in LGBTQA, Danielle Nied and Mercedes Hightower. I think they are going to be a good pairing and come highly recommended. That presentation takes place on September 22. And it will be our first real test to see if people are actually going to show up.

Lastly, I have a bunch of students who work with the Help Center. They sent out this note yesterday that I wanted to pass along to my LGBTQA friends. Sometimes it can hard transitioning and making friends. Sometimes we don't know where to turn or who to talk to. The Help Center is a great place to call to talk to fellow students about whatever you need to talk about. Their information is below:

The first week of school can be stressful and overwhelming, especially as a
Freshman being thrown into such a new environment. If you want to talk
about anything, anything at all, call the Help Center at 301-314-HELP.
Talking with students for 40 years, Help Center is UMD's Peer Counseling
... and Crisis Intervention Hotline. No issue is too big or too small to
talk about. M-Th 2pm-2am, F 2pm-10pm, Sa-Su 4pm-12am.