Established in 1995, the Freedom Alliance is an active student organization on campus, serving as both an advocacy and social group for the LGBTQ communities at UMBC. They frequently sponsor movie nights, nationally known speakers, and well attended social events like Queer Prom. In 2007 the Freedom Alliance moved to a permanent office space in the University Center. This contact sheet shows images taken for The Retriever at a tabling event for National Coming Out Day in 1995. The grease pencil marks on the sheet show which images the photographer or newspaper editor selected for publication in the story about the event.]]>

The first annual Lavender Celebration, honoring LGBTQ graduates and campus allies, was held on May 1, 2014 and was coordinated by the Office of Student Life's Mosaic: Center for Culture and Diversity. The Mosaic works within the Office of Student Life to promote and foster a community of diversity and acceptance on campus. In addition to honoring graduating students, honors are also awarded to departments and faculty/staff allies; the 2014 recipients were The Women’s Center, the department of Gender & Women’s Studies, and GWST professor Dr. Kate Drabinski. The Queer Camping & Leadership Retreat (Student Life) and the Spoken Word Comes Alive with Andrea Gibson (Freedom Alliance) were also recognized.]]>

Diversity in the faculty communities at UMBC has continued to be a struggle. Faculty and staff at UMBC that self identify as white routinely make up about 70% of respondents. The administration and campus leaders have repeatedly tried to recruit a more diverse faculty, and most recently put in place several programs and initiatives to address this issue, including the Executive Committee for the Recruitment, Retention and Advancement of Underrepresented Minority Faculty, the UMBC OutList, and the UMBC Postdoctoral Fellows Program for Faculty Diversity which began in 2011.]]>