Council for Queer Student Leaders Spotlight
Within the past couple of weeks, the Council of Queer Student Leaders (CQSL) recently joined the BSU community as an official Registered Student Organization. In an interview with their newly-elected President, senior Ollie Crowe (they/he), The Comment has been given the inside scoop into their journey of becoming recognized by the Student Government Association.
Council of Queer Student Leaders, a campus advocacy group for queer students, spent the past years as an aspiring organization preparing to be recognized with its executive board and general members. It wasn’t until the 2023 election of Ollie Crowe as President that recognition by the Student Government Association became top priority. Crowe cites the frustration of all the limitations put on aspiring organizations as motivation for becoming recognized. The process involved lots of revisions of the organization’s constitution which in total took about one month to thoughtfully complete.
For Crowe and the rest of CQSL, becoming a Registered Student Organization was such a huge accomplishment because of the importance of the organization. “It is entirely designed to uplift and echo the voices of queer students of Bridgewater State University”, Crowe says. They later continued, “Without organizations like this, students gathering together and amplifying the voices of other students, so many queer people on this campus wouldn’t be where they are. It wouldn’t nearly be as accepting or safe of a space if we weren’t fighting to make it so. This crucial for making sure BSU is accepting for everybody”. An example of the splendid work that CQSL does for advocating for queer students is ensuring the implementation of the name and use system. This system is used to hold professors accountable so they are using the proper names and pronouns of their students.
Council of Queer Student Leaders also puts on several programs throughout the academic year for the BSU community. These programs include the Big Queer Welcome fall semester event (in collaboration with the Pride Center), the upcoming April’s Rocky Horror Night in addition to tabling around campus to educate the campus community on current topics such as anti-trans bills in the United States.
For those looking to get involved with CQSL, it is a closed-membership organization where membership is obtained by filling out a brief application. Any student who identifies as queer and is involved on campus (campus organization, employment, athletics, etc.) may apply. For more information contact President Ollie Crowe via email – ocrowe.student.bridgew.edu.
