WELCOMING OUR NEWEST CSUN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION CHAPTER

The LGBTQA alumni chapter officially formed last month and was started by three alumni: Mike Bloch '90 (Bank of America), Ronora Sayaman '97 (KPMG) and Zeke Zielder '87 (Judge, Los Angeles Superior Court).

The purpose of CLAASS is to serve as an LGBT-focused and alumni-driven organization whose role is to provide tangible educational, mentoring, and reputational benefits to LGBTQA students, alumni, university faculty and the community, including:

• Benefits to students via educational, networking, mentoring and social experiences which support a student's personal development and help prepare them to make an impact in their future workplace and in their community;
• Benefits to alumni via opportunities to give back to their alma mater, help develop students as future LGBTQA leaders, and engage with other fellow LGBTQA alumni;
• Benefit to the university / faculty via programming that, together with the Queer Studies Program, supports the university's reputation as an LGBT-friendly and progressive university;
• Benefit to the community by leveraging alumni, students, and faculty to support local and national LGBT causes and improve the overall experience for the LGBT community throughout the San Fernando Valley and greater Los Angeles area.

Save the Date! Planning is underway for their first on-campus mixer to be held November 16th to support Transgender Week.

An interest list is now forming for future alumni members and steering committee members. If you are interested in becoming a member of CLAASS or would like additional information on how you can become more involved, please email them at lgbtalumni@csun.edu or simply sign-up to become a member today on our website. Membership is $40 per year.

In other news, CSUN just recently celebrated the opening of the new Pride Center on campus. Located in the University Student Union, it will serve as a resource for the LGBTQ community. Read more of this story.