About Wartburg Alliance
Alliance is a student-run organization that seeks to generate awareness about LGBT issues and advocate for more inclusive environments on campus, locally, and nationally. The group has grown significantly over the past few years and is now one of the largest student organizations on campus. The group organizes numerous events throughout the year, including two week-long series of events for Coming Out Week in the fall and Gayla Week in the spring.

2008-09 Executive Board:
President - Stephen Huff
Vice President - Roger Pollock
Treasurer - CJ Peterson
Secretary - Abbie Baker
Communications - Lacey Stonehocker
Advisor - Chris Knudson

Interested in Joining? E-mail: alliance@wartburg.edu

Statement of Welcome
Because gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons and their families are often scorned by society and alienated from the Church, we wish to make known our caring nature and concern. It is for this purpose that we affirm the following:

As a college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and in keeping with Wartburg College's values of diversity and inclusion, the Wartburg College Alliance openly welcomes and affirms people of all sexual orientations and gender identities and understands them to be an important part of the campus community.

History and Highlights of Past Events
During the 2007-08 academic year, Alliance was recognized as the outstanding student organization of the year. Alliance now has a membership of over 100 students (roughly one for every 18 students on campus). Gayla Week included singer Chris Dallman of West Hollywood, CA, the annual cabaret/drag show, LGBT history night and a showing of the film, Poster Boy. Alliance helped encourage bringing Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew Shepard, a gay man who was murdered in 1998 due to homophobia, to campus as the first major convocation speaker of the year. She spoke to a near capacity crowd of about 1,000 people. For Coming Out Week, we had a total of eight events ranging from discussion forums to an coming out expression night, where members got on stage to share their own coming out stories through dance, music, or poetry. The week ended a showing of the Laramie Project and a presentation with Erin Davies and her vandalized FagBug that she drives around the United States. In December the President's Cabinet approved our request to become a Reconciling in Christ organization of Lutherans Concerned. We are now rostered nationally with the group and we hope other organizations on campus will also take this step. Alliance was the first GSA in the country to become rostered. That same month, the Cabinet gave us an office in Founders 06. It is a very spacious office and will allow us better ways to store and create programming materials.

2006-07 continued the success of the previous year. Alliance now boasts about 70 members. The first LGBT alumni reunion was held on campus during homecoming. Coming Out Week was celebrated with a concert by award-winning musician, Gregory Douglass. The first Alliance Film Series was initiated with the movies TransAmerica, Connie and Carla, Angels in America, and Brokeback Mountain. 11 Alliance members attended the annual Midwest Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Ally College Conference in Minneapolis, Minn. GAYLA Week continued to have a great impact on campus with Sasha Sacket making a return performance. The week also included the annual drag show, a session on transgender issues led by a transgendered Wartburg alumnus, a discussion on spirituality and sexuality, and a NCAA-sponsored lecture by Dr. Eric Anderson of the University of Bath, England, about masculinity and sexuality in sports. During the summer of 2007 Alliance organized a state-wide Walk for Peace and Inclusion as the group was selected as one of the 100 Projects for Peace from the Davis Foundation.