While the country’s courts and legislature continued to grapple with gay rights this week, a new LGBT group launched on campus.
Out in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics held its kickoff event Thursday night in Skirkanich Hall. The national group seeks to increase the participation of sexual and gender minority identities in STEM-related fields. The event marked the return of an LGBTQA interest group for students in STEM fields after Penn’s chapter of Queer Undergraduates in Science and Technology closed after its members graduated in 2010.
Engineering alum Matthew Feczko founded QUEST while he was an undergraduate student at Penn. He joined the national board of oSTEM as Vice President of Membership upon graduating in 2010. “Seeing the organization start to re-flourish and re-grow is incredibly exciting,” Feczko said in an email. “Since 2010, we have grown to over 55 oSTEM chapters nation-wide.”
The board currently consists of three graduate students. “The group needs undergraduate representation,” Engineering graduate student and oSTEM officer Marco Varela said. “It’s important for the sustainability of the group,” added Britt Binler , also an Engineering graduate student and oSTEM officer.
Binler helped found the group after meeting with other queer Engineering students through Lambda Grads, an umbrella LGBT group for graduate students. “We saw that the [other graduate schools] had their own specific LGBT groups and we thought Engineering needed one,” she said.
Binler, who had met Feczko while they were both undergraduates at Penn, reached out to him for assistance in setting up Penn’s chapter of oSTEM.
The group hopes to support and cultivate diversity in engineering and science much like Society of Women Engineers or the National Society of Black Engineers. “The three main things for this group is to introduce members to the LGBTQA community, to cultivate leadership and to make it sustainable,” Binler said. “Allies are welcome too.”
John Henry Towne Professor and Chair of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics Robert Carpick is advising the group after previously counseling the defunct QUEST chapter. “oSTEM is the phoenix rising from the ashes of QUEST,” Carpick said.
Carpick is an outspoken advocate of same-sex rights. He left University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006 to work at Penn after Wisconsin denied to extend full health care benefits to his partner. "After six and one-half years of working very hard, I found it's problematic to work in an environment where you are not treated equally,” Carpick said in an interview with the Associated Press. He found the environment at Penn to be more welcoming.
Penn may be an exception in terms of work-place equality. It extends full health care benefits to same-sex couples as well as offering tax offsets to employees who cover their spouse with university insurance. Currently, Pennsylvania does not recognize same-sex marriage.
“The institution is glad to see the group,” Carpick said in the opening of the kickoff event. “The climate isn’t always what you want. These groups are important for networking in a comfortable environment.”
The group hopes to hear what types of events students would like to see oSTEM sponsor.
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