Brian is the Director of the LGBTQ Resource Center at Penn State University, where his role is broken down into three main objectives: education, outreach, and support. Whether running educational workshops, providing resources to students or faculty, or developing new policy to meet the community’s challenges, Brian is working tirelessly to ensure that everyone at Penn State has a place to learn, grow, and become part of the change.
Transcript
My name is Brian Patchcoski and I currently serve as the director of Penn State's Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer and Allies Student Resource Center at their University Park campus. I think for me, when I think about my role, it usually goes into three specific areas: so education, outreach and support. So I think education, I think in many ways is, it can be educational workshops, it could be engaging with folks around culture change and what does that mean. Outreach is providing the resources to the communities we serve, so that's faculty, staff, alumni, community members and the support ranges in terms of direct advocacy, policy development, ways that community members might need some extra support or guidance along the road when there are challenges in educational and or in employment or workplace environments. We, this fall will actually be opening a brand new physical center space. So, Penn State has a vast history of LGBTQ activism and advocacy and so we date back to the 1960s, right after Stonewall, which is 50 years this year in 2019. Thinking about that advocacy and where Penn State students really have fought to change us, this is the first time that we'll have a brand new facility. We have finally solidified that and hearing the needs of various communities and who we are serving now and how it in the best interest of where we will be in the next, hopefully 10, 20 years. The Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity is really our efforts to meet, but also respond to community feedback and interest and engagement and a long time of planning. I think the work that I get to do should be with community. And if I'm not in the community doing that work, I don't know what the community needs. And so my busy week is meeting to meeting, to conversation to conversation and then trying to figure out, has someone, has the vice president emailed me about something and I need to respond to that too? I think I really love the fast pace and the busyness of a Research one institution, of a Penn State, of multi-campus institution with global reach and global impact. And I think from what I, in that work that I get to do, that busyness is change. We get to have those honored and privileged conversations.
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