Dolphin Award for Outstanding Service and Contribution to the College by a Member of the Part-Time, Non-Teaching Staff: Jeremiah Jurkiewicz, Coordinator for the LGBTQ Resource Center, Office of Student Life
You came to CSI as a student in fall of 2008, and you have served as the President of the Gay-Straight Alliance from 2008 to 2010, and eventually moved into your current role in 2013. You also served as a College Assistant in the Office of Information Technology from 2008 to 2013. The assessment from one of your colleagues that you are “an activist par excellence, with an uncanny ability to inspire, organize, and encourage others” perfectly sums up your vast achievements for the LGBTQ community. As President of the Gay-Straight Alliance, you helped to spread awareness, and fight for LGBTQ rights at CSI and on Staten Island. You played a fundamental role in many events on campus, including the “Day of Silence/Night of Noise,” which shed light on the discrimination and abuse that LGBTQ people face on a regular basis. In addition, you helped to launch the LGBTQ Resource Center, emphasizing that there was a critical lack of such support on campus. As the Coordinator of the Center, you have continued to work to support LGBTQ student groups, provided Safe Space training for all departments of the College, assisted with the annual Lavender Graduation, advocated on behalf of transgender members of the College community by fighting for gender-neutral bathrooms and gender-neutral pronouns to be included in CUNYfirst class rosters, and developed events that educate, entertain, and mobilize. All of this hard work has eased the way to academic and personal success for the College’s LGBTQ students and made our campus a safer and more inclusive place.
