Want to educate UMD students on topics important to LGBTQ+ students?
Want to improve your public speaking skills?
Interested in using your story to change hearts and minds?
Become a Peer Educator on life as an LGBTQIA+ student at the University of Maryland! Educate your peers, and contribute to improving campus climate for people of all sexual orientations and all gender identities and expressions.
Enroll in LGBT 350 to become part of Speakers Bureau in Fall 2019!
How to Enroll:
The course is open to all, but you must first speak with staff in the LGBT Equity Center for an assessment of knowledge and skill level. Also, we need to ensure you fully understand the requirements of the class before registering. Generally, LGBT 200 is a prerequisite, but if your current level of knowledge is sufficient, you will be given permission to enroll.
To request an appointment, send an email to lgbt@umd.edu with Speakers Bureau in the subject line. Please provide your name, pronouns, year, preferred email address, and three different times during regular business hours (Mon – Fri, 9:00am – 4:00pm) when you are available to come to 2218 Marie Mount Hall to speak with staff in the Equity Center.
Hear from Past Students
Dereck Myers (they/them) - Community Health major, 2018 Peer Educator (pictured left)
“Speaker’s Bureau is a fun and formative experience that has helped me hone my LGBTQ+ advocacy skills and provided perspectives to make my work more intersectional and effective.”
Michael Pensabene (he/him) - B.A. in Hearing and Speech Sciences, 2016 Peer Educator (pictured right)
"The Speaker's Bureau was an incredible opportunity for me as a queer student to teach my peers about the LGBTQ+ community. It was amazing to get asked questions that many people have but rarely have the space to ask, and it was even better to be able to answer them with my own experience."
I learned good communication skills on difficult topics, which is something other comm classes don't teach you. I learned to talk about personal things (although with the freedom to only disclose and discuss as much as I was comfortable with), and I learned to answer questions about these personal and often sensitive topics. There was no lecture so class time was mostly discussion of the readings and/or relevant topics that pertain to the material, so it was dynamic and entertaining.
Meet the Instructor
Welcome Aqdas Aftab to Speakers Bureau!
Aqdas Aftab (they/them) is a Ph.D. candidate in English Literature. They are also pursuing Graduate Certificates in Women’s Studies and in Critical Theory.They will be co-teaching Speakers Bureau with LGBT Equity Center's Shige Sakurai.
Their dissertation title is “Trans Worlding Within: Decolonial Literary Examinations of Trans of Color Interiority.” They have a Master of Arts in Literary and Cultural Studies with a specialization in Postcolonial Queer Cultural Studies from Carnegie Mellon University, and they have a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Smith College where they wrote a thesis: “Third Space and Gender Identity Formation in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions and Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John.
We are so excited for Speaker's Bureau in the fall! We still have spots available so if you are interested, email lgbt@umd.edu
