“People are beginning to see that there is a diversity amongst the student population,'' says Luna, calling such centers vital to encouraging discussion and promoting tolerance.
Pugh says she aims to expand beyond campus, strengthening relationships between the LGBT community and Charlottesville.
Her appointment comes amid continued efforts to combat campus intolerance.
In September, U.Va. President John T. Casteen III held a meeting to address a spate of racial incidents on campus, including one in which vandals wrote racial epithets outside a dorm room and an apartment.
Fourth-year student David Reid says he's experienced anti-gay harassment around campus, including an incident in which a group of men told him to “get AIDS ... and (expletive) die.”
“The hiring of a new director is definitely a good sign,'' says Reid, who is gay. “I think this is just another sign of the administration taking the right steps.''
A chief officer for diversity and equity — another first for the Charlottesville campus — began Nov. 1. Pugh started Oct. 24.
— Associated Press
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