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Welcome Back! GIM This Week + Conference Details!

Sreejato Chatterjee - Monday, September 2
 Email Updates 
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Queers Read This!

Did you have a very mindful, very demure summer? [reply]

    Another syllabus day, another class slay. We hope your first week of classes went well! Thank you all so much for stopping by during the Activities Fair last week, personally we were all dying from the heat (winter cannot get here soon enough) but it was refreshing to see so many new and familiar faces. We are so excited for what’s in store this year!
    Unfortunately, unlike last year we didn’t get any pictures of us at the activities fair this year. However, our lovely Co-Presidents Rainah and Brianna, alongside oSTEM and Pride Network icon Latif, competed in the drag bingo this Sunday night and got a great picture with the incredible Darienne Lake, who hosted the event! Sree (yours truly) was also present and even won a nice cooking set in an impromptu lip sync battle (note: I’m never doing that again in my life, but it was a great minute of breaking social anxiety)!

This Week

    Join us this Wednesday (September 4) for our first meeting of the semester, our General Interest Meeting, from 7-8 pm at Douglass 401! We will be discussing the various events we have planned for the semester, and go over upcoming conference plans!

Coming Up

Updates
- Slack Group: Join
    Don’t forget to join the oSTEM Slack group!! Beyond networking with other members and getting behind-the-scenes gossip, you’ll also receive updates on our Resources & Opportunities and helpful adjacent material (ie. O4U’s LGBTQ+ Resume slides and National oSTEM Scholarships tips). 
- O4U Conference Coordination: Contact Info Form
    Congrats & best wishes to all of our O4U Digital and Engineering/Life Science Conference attendees!! Sree, our Secretary (and yours truly), will be attending the new Life Sciences Pilot Conference in three weeks from September 27th-29th (unfortunately I’ll be missing Meliora weekend, but you get 4 chances for that anyway). If you are attending any of the conferences, please fill out the form above so that we can coordinate travel and group logistics!!
- oSTEM Conference: Interest Form
    The application for the 2024 oSTEM Conference is now open! Last year we had a great showing at our first national conference, and we are working hard to work out travel logistics/finances to ensure strong UR representation once again!! This year, the conference will be in Portland, Oregon from October 17th-20th. All our fellow queer besties are encouraged to apply, whether you’re a freshman in your second/third week of school, or a senior wanting to branch out and connect with other queer people in STEM. If you have cool research that you did and you want to present, the oSTEM conference also is the perfect outlet to do so!! The application is due on September 11th, but we prioritize people who submit earlier, so please fill it out as soon as possible if you are interested in going!
- Addressing Pronouns in Queer Spaces
    One of the ‘privileges’ of predominantly queer spaces is the unique (and unfortunately rare) feeling of belonging. To further establish oSTEM spaces as one, we ask everyone to default to they/them pronouns when referring to someone whose pronouns you don’t know at our meetings/events. This practice is commonplace in spaces like O4U’s conferences because it simultaneously avoids misgendering someone (which if you do, apologize and move on, don’t prolong the moment!) and helps deconstruct our rigid understanding of gender through everyday communication. 
    Gender is a very fluid thing (for some it’s a trial journey), feel free to explore different pronouns in our spaces if you’d like (re: pocket gender) and/or update them anytime. Some people might be in a tricky place with their identity so, instead of *asking* them for their pronouns, share your pronouns as a soft prompting for theirs (if you’d like), and if they don’t specify theirs, keep to they/them!
oSTEM
- Website
    Browse through our CCC website to take advantage of our compiled Resources & Opportunities (scholarships, conferences, etc.), read more about our iconic E-Board, and find other general oSTEM links. The website is regularly updated, if you spot any issues or know of an R&O we haven’t included, our Feedback Form is always open!
 
Outside
- Transgender First Scholarship: Applications due by December 31, 2024
    TFS’s annual $2.5k scholarship is open to trans/non-binary+ college students of all majors. The application is relatively short, but it does ask for a blog/social media post (300-1000 words) on your experiences. Feel free to contact us for blog post guidance if you’d like to go that route. 

See you Wednesday!!

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