It’s been almost three years since Millikin has last seen a club dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community. For a campus that has such a large LGBTQ+ community, Millikin lacks in support groups for said community.

Sure, there are definitely safe spaces and people who can help members of the community when it comes to personal issues, but what Millikin needs is a space in which LGBTQ+ students can talk to, and be accepted by, their peers. That’s where Millikin’s newest club, Spectrum, comes in.

Spectrum was created in the spring semester of last year. Back then, it wasn’t officially a club yet, more like a group of queer people who met up once a week and talked for an hour.

What we talked about was, well, basically everything. Which is exactly what I expected walking into the first “official” meeting of the fall semester, a small group of people. I say “official” because we did have a meeting first week, but not a lot of people were able to make it/knew about it.

As I took the elevator to the second floor of the University Commons, I was excited. I was ready to meet more members of the community and get to know them as people. I like to think that my expectations were high, but the crowd that waited for me on the second floor was beyond them. This was the first time Spectrum was meeting as an official club and there were a ton of new faces.

Seeing all of those people really drove home how much Millikin really needs a club like Spectrum.

“The existence of LGBT organizations is necessary not only everywhere in are country but also everywhere on the globe right now,” Kaia Ball, a member of Spectrum’s executive board, said. “As rights begin to be fought for and begin to be won, conversations and discussions start about what it means to question your sexuality, what it means to question your gender, and what it means to celebrate the differences in sexuality and gender than what we have been taught as the norm.”

Ball goes on to say that the lack of a club for LGBTQ+  students has been draining on the community on campus as well as the staff who feel that they can’t help their students in the way that they need to be helped.

“What we really want to offer is a place of support and a place where people can feel comfortable to be themselves,” Genesis Brito, a member of Spectrum’s executive board, said. “When we talk about support, we mean offering a place…that is also offering education and opportunities,”

When it comes to education, Spectrum has a specific kind of education in mind.

“One of the big things on this campus that we feel it’s lacking is sexual education,” Brito said.

“We want to provide students with resources,” Spectrum President, Madison Burress, said.

Spectrum plans to be a place where people can come and voice concerns that they may have when it comes to how they’ve been treated on campus, their own sexual and gender identities, as well as a place where people can just be.

At the meeting, Burress, Brito, and Ball, discuss all of the possible events that Spectrum can do. Ideas were thrown around, a Pride Ball was mentioned, and the atmosphere of the whole thing was very hopeful. Spectrum definitely has the makings of a wonderful organization, and I think that it will be a great place for LGBTQ+ people and their allies to get together and make some big changes here on Millikin’s campus.