On Wednesday, Oct. 11, the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) hosted Fordham’s very first pride parade. For a few hours, campus became awash with signs proclaiming the right to love, flags with every color of the rainbow and loud music booming through campus. The parade started beside the Lombardi Fieldhouse, winding past Hughes Hall, Cunniffe House and Dealy Hall to end right in front of the McShane Campus Center. The night did not conclude here, however, as drag queens then performed a show while students cheered them on. Two students even stepped into the makeshift stage, lip syncing and voguing to the best of their abilities. The event ended with a speech from Juan Carlos Matos, the assistant vice president for student affairs for diversity and inclusion, which highlighted the importance of hosting Fordham’s inaugural pride parade.
According to Matos, hosting an event like the pride parade has been a long time in the making. Last spring, at the presentation of the Qu(e)ery Survey, a report that gathered insight into the experiences of Fordham students who belong to a sexual or gender-based minority, two of the students said that they’d love to see a pride parade on campus. While the pride parade did require considerable funds, alumni donations to the LGBTQ Programming fund enabled OMA to host the parade on National Coming Out Day. Hosting it on that day also enabled it to go hand in hand with OMA’s other event, Flags on the Lawn, which has been an ongoing event for the past five years.
But, why create the pride parade now? And why in October?
“The visibility of the LGBTQ community has really grown on campus, as well as student groups for LGBTQ students. We felt like we needed a larger scale event to celebrate the community,” said Dorothy Bogen, FCRH ’24, the cultural programming coordinator for OMA’s LGBTQ+ History Month committee. “Since we aren’t in school in June as well, we often can’t celebrate actual Pride, so we thought it would be perfect to have this event in October, LGBTQ History month.”
While OMA struggled on determining the scale of the event, organizing the actual event on a very short timeline and informing the student body about this new event, their instincts were certainly in the right place. At the very least, they were right about needing a larger scale. Hundreds of people participated in the event, either waving flags along the parade’s route or riding in golf carts and leaning out the sides. Many clubs, like Rodrigue’s Coffee House, Women’s Empowerment Club and Students for Environmental Awareness and Justice, joined in the event, as well as countless individuals — both students and faculty.
“Looking back to see all the golf carts, students and staff actually in a parade route was a very proud and emotional thing to see, being a gay Afro-Dominican administrator. Not being comfortable being ‘out’ in undergrad and now having the opportunity to create an event like this at Fordham was very meaningful to me,” said Matos, who led the parade with his partner.
He wasn’t the only one for whom this was an impactful first. For Sarah Newgil, FCRH ’27, who marched with Rodrigue’s Coffee House in the parade, this was her first pride event. “This felt really welcoming, and was really nice,” she said.
Other students echoed her sentiment: “I love the music and the banners, and the fun environment,” said Patricia Scully, FCRH ’25.
The environment was certainly full of fun, laughter and celebration. People attended the march with their friends, and dressed up as if they were attending an off-campus pride parade. The crowd was filled with rainbow sweaters, skirts, face paint and more, not to mention the handfuls of flags that students waved. Members of the LGBTQ committee stood beside boxes upon boxes of small pride flags, giving out one, two or even three to whomever asked.
“It’s nice to have a reminder of how far we’ve come and how meaningful events like this can be for people in the Fordham community,” said Bogen.
With the success of this event, Matos says that OMA is definitely planning on turning the pride parade into an annual event. He hopes that, by planning earlier, they will be able to incorporate more members of the Fordham community and include more off-campus organizations that partner with Fordham.
Although a senior, Bogen is also excited for the event to become a tradition. “It’s nice to have a reminder of how far we’ve come, and how meaningful events like this can be for people in the Fordham community.”
OMA has held a series of events throughout October celebrating LGBTQ history and culture, which included the pride parade and Flags on the Lawn. Their final event of LGBT History Month is their Halloween Party, which will take place on Oct. 27.
