Between 55 to 65 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students and their allies packed Tufts' LGBT center Tuesday to partake in a new spin on an old tradition.
It is customary for Tufts' LGBT community to have a welcome dinner in the first few days of the academic year, Center Director Dona Yarbrough said. "It's always served as a way for LGBT students and their allies to reconnect after the summer, and for new students to make friends."
This is the first time, however, that a prize was offered for attending.
The dinner's eye-catching though perhaps slightly misleading title - the "$1,000 Dinner" - did not refer to a single cash prize for a lucky student. Rather, over pizza and Coke, students were encouraged to form groups of three and come up with a community event that would cost $1,000 or less.
The rules were simple, dictating that students create a safe, community-themed event that could include about 15 Tufts undergraduates.
About five ideas were presented to the overheated room, and a popular vote approved an overnight excursion to Provincetown, Mass. in the spring.
Junior Preston Dickey, a member of the group which brainstormed this idea, said that he felt it was an enjoyable way to bring LGBT students together. "This will provide a fun chance to go to a place centered around queer life," he said.
Yarbrough was as excited about the winning idea as she was with the turnout for the dinner itself. "There were many, many more out [of the closet] people in terms of freshmen than I've ever seen in my time working here," she said.
Although she's been with Tufts for only two years, Yarbrough noted that, having spoken with previous LGBT Center Directors, this year could easily be the largest freshmen LGBT turnout in Tufts' history.
She added that there also seemed to be a large contingent of straight allies - students who are not LGBT, but support their peers who are.
Whether or not this explosion in participation is a direct result of the dinner's financial allure is debatable. Yarbrough came up with the idea over the summer in an effort to increase participation, and by all accounts the plan seems to have been an impressive success.
"The $1,000 part of the dinner was added this year to get people to start thinking about getting more involved within their community," she said.
The $1,000 Dinner is the Tufts LGBT community's second major event of the year. The first was an open house during orientation geared mostly towards incoming freshmen and their families.
