From March 21 to March 27, Bucknell celebrated its annual Pride Week, hosted and sponsored largely by Bucknell’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA).
Pride Week is a long-standing tradition at Bucknell, acting as a miniature version of the nationwide Pride Month. Because Pride Month is traditionally held in June, when students are not active on campus, Pride Week was begun as a celebration oriented around the schedule of the academic year, enabling students at Bucknell to be able to come together and celebrate the rich history of the queer community.
Maria Wooden ’26, president of Bucknell’s GSA, truly appreciates the importance of her position and the role of Pride Week on campus. “Pride week allows for [the whole campus to] celebrate and center around the stories and fun of queerness and the LGBTQ+ community [here at Bucknell],” she explained. The events and collaborations of Pride Week were meticulously planned by Wooden and a team of GSA Executive Board members.
The week started off with a talk titled “Colonial Entanglements – Poetic Methodologies: Queer Memory Acts as Theory and Praxis,” sponsored by the Humanities Center on Thursday, March 21st. It was hosted by guest speaker Dr. Karen Jaime, a former host of the Friday Night Poetry Slam at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and artist-scholar whose expertise lies in placing theory into practice as a liberating mode of documenting the oft-ignored contributions of queer communities of color.
On Friday the 22nd, the GSA collaborated with Hillel for Pride Shabbat, held at the Berelson Center. Students came together and enjoyed a home cooked meal amongst peers, an evening which facilitated the growth of a collaborative and empathetic community. Monday’s activity took place at the 7th Street Makerspace, where participants were given the opportunity to make their own crewneck sweatshirt, sporting a newly-designed GSA logo. Karaoke was held at Fran’s house on Tuesday evening and to round out the week, a QTPOC art showcase was featured at the Samek Art Museum.
However, the annual Drag Ball, a highly anticipated event that took place Saturday night, was described as the biggest and the most unforgettable event of the week. A subcommittee within the Gender and Sexuality Executive Board planned the event.
Drag Ball serves as an energetic gathering that provides a social outlet for both allies and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Here, peers can connect with one another in a safe environment and engage with professional drag kings and queens, who are just as excited to perform as students are to be there.
This year, a number of drag queens from across the Eastern seaboard performed, as well as members of the Bucknell community students and faculty. The night was emceed by a drag king named Dallas. Student performers included junior Harper Dick ’25; of her experience performing for her peers, Harper expressed joy, saying, “I just love being able to go crazy with my dancing and also do some makeup and fits that would not be considered the day-to-day makeup. The support from the queens and kings and the crowd remind me I’m okay and safe to be me. I will use my drag opportunities to remind everyone else: you can’t silence this queen!”
Pride Week is a long-standing and much-beloved tradition, but there are still changes to be made. Wooden loved her time planning and attending Pride Week events, but also acknowledged the necessity of further change: “Although there has been great progress, there is still a lot to fight for in this country, and at Bucknell.”
