During divisive times, it can probably feel easier – and safer – to hide away our true selves from those who would judge us negatively for daring to be different. It takes an outrageous amount of courage to boldly stand out from the mainstream and stand up for others, like you, who are being persecuted for being themselves.
Dr. Bridget Brooks, an instructional designer for the University of North Dakota’s Teaching Transformation and Development Academy and active member of North Dakota United's local union, UND United, vividly remembers the moment when the courage of her colleagues emboldened her to step up for herself and for others.
“I’d been a UND employee in a couple of different ways, and when I came back at this position, I was kind of looking at the website and seeing things that had changed across campus,” Brooks recalled. “One of those things was the (Faculty and Staff) OUTlist. There is an OUTlist on the UND website where staff and faculty have said, ‘Hey, you can put my name and you can put my picture, so that people know that I am out.’ That was kind of overwhelming for me. So, I sat at my new desk, and the tears just started flowing down my face like, wow, this is huge … just looking at those faculty and staff that had the courage to say, ‘Hey, you know what, I’m gay, I’m a member of UND’s staff, and I’m going to put my name out here.’”
From that moment, Brooks was inspired to be bold and give back to her community at UND. And so, she and her wife, Jody, brainstormed and came up with the idea of establishing an endowment to support UND’s Pride Center, which is the only LGBTQ+ center at an institution of higher learning in the state.
“Anybody can go into the Pride Center,” Brooks said. “It’s not just inclusive if you’re a member of the LGBTQ community – it’s there for everybody. If you're an ally, you can go into that space and you can take part in the programming and those kinds of things. You don't even have to be a UND student because it's a public institution. You can go in there and you can spend time in that welcoming space.”
The couple approached the UND Alumni Association to set up the LGBTQ+ Endowment, and guaranteed $25,000 in donations within five years, or they would personally pay whatever difference they couldn’t raise. They have already surpassed that goal in under a year, and now the new milestone is to raise $100,000 within five years.
Brooks said she feels incredibly grateful to everyone who has helped them to make the endowment successful so quickly, including the expert help of the Alumni Association and all of their donors. “Their kindness has been overwhelming at times,” she said. “Because we see so much hate towards our community to have somebody say, hey, I'm going to donate $200 for this because I know you're going through a tough time right now, it's amazing. And they're not just helping Jody and me, they're helping the entire community. This is our future, and UND is so blessed to have a Pride Center on campus, so I just think it's important to keep getting the word out there to get the donations.”
Click Here to Donate to LGBTQ+ Endowment
In recognition of all the amazing work that Bridget has done within the LGBTQ+ community, she was selected as this year’s winner of the Cheryl Terrance Award, whose namesake was a long-time UND psychology professor, advisor for the Ten Percent Society, and a campus legend who passed away in 2022. As part of receiving the award, Brooks was also named grand marshal for the first-ever Grand Forks Pride Parade.
When asked what these honors meant to her personally, she said it was huge because of how much Terrance meant to her as a friend and ally. “First and foremost, Cheryl did a lot for me,” Brooks said. “I believe she was still an advisor for the Ten Percent Society (when) I reached out to her because I was writing my dissertation, and I wanted to get her opinion on whether or not this would be a good dissertation to write. She took the time to meet with me in the summer, and she was off contract. We just went over things, and we would have conversations and talk about things and where things were going in the nation. She just did so much that she didn't have to do, and she took that time and she accepted people for who they were and always took the time to make you feel included.”
After the Pride Parade concluded a month ago, on Sept. 15, Brooks said she has had time to reflect on how much she’s been able to accomplish thus far, and the importance of the work she and Jody have done for all of the communities that have embraced them for the incredible people they truly are.
“The Pride Parade was nothing but joy and happiness and almost like a relief — like, we can be out here, and we can be ourselves, and nobody is threatening us,” Brooks said. Afterward, she said Jody had noticed a young man who was standing alone among the crowd that had gathered in Town Square, and she approached him to introduce herself. He said he was from a nearby town and had heard the parade was going on in Grand Forks. So, he drove about 45 minutes to attend because, he said, he just needed some love in his life.
“A man from a small town told us, ‘I just need some love in my life.’ He wasn’t gay — he just knew there was going to be joy and healing at the parade, and that’s why he came,” she said.
Brooks says that, if asked for advice or guidance from anyone out there, from any background, race, culture, gender or identity, who wants to help but has been made to feel powerless or alone, she would offer them this one word: Courage. “For many years, I might have been alone in standing up and speaking my mind,” she said. “But when you stand up and have courage, it gives other people courage too.
“I wrote the word ‘courage’ on a piece of paper and put it in my office window. You’d be surprised — when you stand up, people see it, and they want to stand with you. … Even me standing up and saying, ‘Hey, I’m gay, but I’m also a person,’ can bring change.”
