On Nov. 15, the LGBTQ Resource Center officially established its new leadership team. The team consists of four resource center members: Haven King, Chris Orgovan, Amy Roney and Lauryn Shinaul.
The team’s responsibilities include managing the center in the absence of Center Director Ali Colluci. “We’re to be treated like Ali when Ali’s not around,” said Orgovan, “and whenever there are any issues that arise in the center, questions that need to be answered about what’s going on in the center, where resources are, we’re kind of like the next go-to people if Ali isn’t available.”
Most of the leadership team spends a lot of time at the center, but at least one of them is required to be at the center when the director is not there. “For example today, Ali has to bus back to her house…and she needs someone to hold down the fort,” explained Orgovan.
The team plans to establish an official availability schedule for team members so as to be better able to co-ordinate office management. “We’ll set up a schedule so that people are there for opening, or so that they’re there for closing?” said Colluci.
For the moment, the team members’ schedules are working to cover the center’s hours. Said Shinaul, “I’m usually here in the morning, so when Ali’s not here in the morning I’m the first person on leadership in there so I can make sure everyone in the center is okay. Chris [Orgovan] comes in next, and then Haven [King] will come in the afternoon, and Ali is in the morning, so at least one of us is in there at all times.”
The team will do more than manage the center in lieu of the director. “I hope that there’ll be a newfound enthusiasm in the center. We’ll encourage more people to join and become members of the LGBTQ resource center,” said Orgovan. “We’ll have more turnout for events and I’m not just talking about people that come to our events to support us or are interested in what the event is about, I’m talking about more members from the center volunteering to kind of step up and say, ‘I’d love to help out with this event. What can I do?’”
“I really hope that we can outreach to other high schools and show them this is how our resource center is run and how Ali [Colluci] does things and hope that they can model that after ours,” said Shinaul, “Our resource center is a really fun place to be, there’s a lot of people you can meet, there’s a lot of resources, we all have a good time and I just want it to kind of stay that way.”
“There are going to be contracts that all the leadership members sign. There are going to be certain rules, regulations and responsibilities that they have to follow otherwise they’ll get a warning,” explained Colluci. “If they’re past that warning, they’ll be on probation and dropped down to unofficial leadership, and if that doesn’t work out then they’ll have to be a regular member again and wait for another spot to open up for them to go back through the hiring process.
“The only reasons for another hiring process is if one of them drops out, one of them quits or one of them gets fired,” explained Colluci. The center expects to add more leadership members in the future.