UD’s Q*mmunity Leaders Foster Inclusion and Pride on Campus
Eva Lonneman | Contributing Writer
Today is a typical day for Jenna Reinhart.
She spends her day engaging with her University of Dayton community as she attends classes and plans events. It isn’t always perfect for Reinhart because she grapples with the fear not everyone she meets will accept her identity. As a queer senior psychology major, she strives to counteract this feeling by creating a welcoming, safe and accepting environment for fellow LGBTQ+ students.
She does this through her work with her fellow peers and Sawyer Federinko, the assistant director for LGBTQ+ Education. These individuals make up the peer education group, Q*mmunity Leaders, who design events to raise awareness and build support for the queer community on campus. It meets once a week on Wednesdays for a one-credit mini-course, where it gets together to discuss current queer issues and ways to support students.
Reinhart joined Q*mmunity Leaders during the spring semester of her sophomore year because she wanted to get involved in a group that shared her mental health and advocacy values. The group combines the social aspect of making queer students feel welcome on campus with the educational aspect of informing the campus of topics surrounding the LGBTQ+ community.
During Q*mmunity meetings, the group discusses its goals and brainstorms potential events, such as recruitment and educational tabling. Most events are introduced and planned in just a few weeks, while events such as Trans Day of Remembrance and Pride Week are prepared throughout the year.
The Q* leaders plan social or educational events based on what they believe would be helpful and engaging for the LGBTQ+ community and allies alike. Social events focus on building queer joy and community bonding, while educational events target LGBTQ+ topics people on campus may not be generally knowledgeable about.
“Every time we make an event, whether it’s just random tabling in KU, a whole presentation or a group discussion, it always comes from the angle of ‘how are we going to reach the most people’ and ‘how are we going to present this information in a way that is most effective?’” Reinhart said.
Events eligible for PATH Points are usually for educational purposes, and the Q* leaders aim to choose entertaining or topically relevant subjects UD students can learn from. The group’s most popular event is LGBTQ+ music trivia because it’s fun and recognizes queer people exist in all spaces, including the music industry.
Pride Week from April 7-11 is its big yearly spring event, meant to represent Pride Month since students aren’t on campus in June. Each Q* leader takes a leadership role at one event and helps with a few of the other events during the week. This year’s events included bowling and board games, a queer book fair and tea party, movie night with a showing of Will & Harper, Lavender Ball and Our Voices Matter. Federinko focused his time on preparing for the Lavender Ball while he let the Q* leaders primarily plan the rest of the events.
“I really wanted the Q*s to be able to take charge of this, because they’re the ones doing a lot of the groundwork with their peers as far as educating people and holding events that help celebrate and bring joy to the community of the University of Dayton at large
“At the end of the day, the events we plan are to make queer people on campus feel safe and seen,” Reinhart said. “They can look at us and even if they don’t know what our identity is, they can still know there are queer people on this campus. Especially people in leadership positions that are queer.”
As a trained peer education group, members have an extra layer of credibility when conversing on campus. Its dialogue training ensures its willingness to learn and welcome respectful, educational conversations encompassing queerness. When teaching the Q* leaders, Federinko always refers to the University of Dayton’s mission as a Catholic Marianist campus, which involves respecting everyone’s human dignity.
For more information regarding the Q*mmunity Leaders at the University of Dayton, visit https://udayton.edu/studev/health_wellness/brook/lgbtq/findingqmmunity.php.
The University of Dayton’s Q*mmunity Leaders strive for the safety, comfort and inclusion of all students and the greater LGBTQ+ community. Its peer education work is crucial to creating a supportive campus culture. Students can get involved by reaching out to Sawyer Federinko or any of the Q* leaders. ,” Federinko said.
The Q*mmunity events are welcome to allies and LGBTQ+ community members as a safe place for the community and a space for queer education. The group isn’t just for queer people; anyone who cares about the community is welcome to join.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Eva Lonneman produced this article as part of CMM 330: Media Writing, a course offered through the Department of Communication at the University of Dayton. In this class, students develop writing skills for journalism and public relations across media platforms, emphasizing clarity, accuracy, and effective information gathering. This story, featured in Flyer News, highlights the work of the Q*mmunity Leaders, a student-led peer education group that fosters support, inclusion, and advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community on campus.