Programs and Events

Coffee and snacks from 10am to 1pm (almost) every Wednesday with occasional programming, such as book galleries, trivia, and meet-and-greets with other offices on campus. If you’ve always wanted to visit the Center but weren’t sure when to stop by, LGBTea and Treats is a great time to visit.

A monthly event on the first Thursday of the month with food, music, activities, games, and more from 6 pm to 8 pm.

The Center celebrates LGBTQIA2S+ history and community during the month of October each academic year. This OUTober’s events will include Ace Week, Queer Prom, and a pride flag raising!

Queer Prom is a yearly celebration of LGBTQIA2S+ community at Northeastern. As one of our most beloved events, Queer Prom represents the culmination of OUTober festivities and brings students together in an environment of joy, freedom, and community uplift. Join us for music, dancing, food, giveaways, and a fashion show in Curry Ballroom. A sensory friendly space will be available throughout the night in Curry 174 to support the broadest possible access to the event.

Queer Prom 2024 was October 19, 2024. We look forward to seeing you next year!

Each April, the Center celebrates LGBTQIA2S+ graduates from across the university with a banquet, music, brief program, addresses from students and staff, and the bestowing of the Center’s handmade rainbow graduation stoles. This joyous program is open to the entire Northeastern University community, and guests are encouraged to attend to support our graduating students! A smaller Rainbow Graduation Dinner is typically held in December for Fall graduates.

Northeastern’s Rainbow Graduation follows the pattern first established at the University of Michigan by Dr. Ronni Sanlo in 1995. Dr. Sanlo, a Jewish lesbian, was barred from attending the graduation of her children. Dr. Sanlo conceived of the ceremony as a way to recognize and celebrate the contributions that LGBTQ+ students make to their colleges and universities. 

ReachOut is a career conference organized by the Northeastern University LGBTQA Resource Center and NU PLACE in partnership with campus and community partners from across the Boston metro area. 

ReachOut centers and celebrates the work and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, queer, trans, non-binary, asexual and aromantic spectra, and Two-Spirit professionals. The conference aims to provide opportunities for reflection, connection, learning, and direct resource access for current students, alumni, and community members through a combination of panels, workshops, and social activities.

QUEST (Queer Understandings of Equity and Social Transformation) is a leadership development program informed by histories of LGBTQIA2S+ leadership initiatives in the United States, with an appreciation for the transnational character of much of that organizing. Each Spring semester, QUEST is offered in a two-day retreat format over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. Stand-alone modules have been offered in the past throughout the year, and the Center looks forward to creating a diversity of opportunities for students to engage in QUEST material in the 2025-2026 academic year.

Each learning module within QUEST explores a theme through a combination of case studies and practical reflections on the work of LGBTQIA2S+ leadership by community leaders, organizers, artist-activists, academics, and significant figures from LGBTQIA2S+ history. By combining podcasts, film, academic publishing, indie media, archival documents, and organizational how-to’s, the program introduces participants to the many forms that leadership knowledge takes and challenges participants to reconsider where and to what extent they already practice leadership.

The program emphasizes leadership activities happening in informal community settings, in grassroots organizations, and in small nonprofits based on the assumption that participants already have access to abundant leadership models in higher education and in large nonprofit organizations. That said, each module will connect the module’s theme to work happening at the LGBTQA Resource Center in order to provoke discussion on how learnings from external case studies might be best translated into work on campus.

In support of Cultural and Spiritual Life’s collective mission and in celebration of the rich global diversity of LGBTQIA2S+ life, the Center uses social media, programming, our newsletter, and our physical space to support students’ access to cultural education about LGBTQIA2S+ people, organizations, movements, and communities across time periods, cultures, and geographic areas. Whether through our Instagram campaigns in celebration of history and heritage months, arts-based programming that celebrates queer and trans creatives, or social activities like Trans Trivia Night and the Outober Film Festival, the Center provides opportunities for students to witness and engage in storytelling about our collective and individual experiences as LGBTQIA2S+ people.