Kingsborough Community College professor of speech communication, Dr. Gordon Alley-Young, has secured a $30,000 grant from the CUNY LGBTQIA+ Consortium to support campus programming and services for the 2025-26 academic year. Funded by the New York City Council's LGBTQIA+ Caucus and the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, the consortium advances educational programming, community-building events, and archiving of LGBTQIA+ history across 25 CUNY campuses.

This is the fourth consecutive year Alley-Young has secured consortium funding for KCC, which has supported Lavender Graduation, Brooklyn’s borough-wide CUNY Queer Prom, and the creation of a dedicated LGBTQIA+ collection in the Kibbee Library, along with events featuring authors, artists, and advocates.

“This project promotes supports and events on campus that are essential for the health and well-being of the next generation of LGBTQIA+ leaders,” noted Alley-Young. “It is important that these funds be used to uplift, celebrate, and make visible a diverse and vibrant LGBTQIA+ community so that individuals at CUNY from all walks of life can live authentic lives free of discrimination or erasure.”

The funds will allow KCC to expand programming with queer authors, artists and scholars; sustain such established events as Lavender Graduation; and support the important work of existing student resources that address their pressing life needs, including Safe Zones and the Access Resource Center.

Launched in 2017, the CUNY LGBTQIA+ Consortium connects 25 campuses across the university system. In fiscal year 2024, consortium-supported programs attracted more than 15,000 attendees, including borough-wide LGBTQIA+ leadership conferences and the Queeribbean Crossings initiative with the Caribbean Equality Project. Alley-Young said the Consortium’s long-term goal is to establish a permanent LGBTQIA+ Institute within CUNY to support centers at each campus.

“Success for me means providing quality opportunities for the campus to come together to engage with LGBTQIA+ culture and to build a network of support and awareness of the issues facing our communities,” he said. “History shows us that silence and invisibility equal death, whether we are talking about the neglect of the HIV/AIDS crisis or the legacy of race and gender violence that our communities continue to face.”

For more information about the consortium, visit https://www.laguardiawagnerarchive.lagcc.cuny.edu/LGBTQIAConsortium.aspx.