Student Award Named in Honor of Vince McCoy

When Technical Support Consultant Vince McCoy attended the LGBT Resource Center's Spring Awards Reception and Lavender Graduation on May 28, he wasn't expecting to receive an award himself. But at the ceremony, the center announced the creation of a brand-new award: "The Vince McCoy Honorary Leadership Award."

Named for the first African-American president of the NU Gay Liberation Front and long-time NU Library staff member, this award will be given to a student who has shown excellent leadership skills within the LGBTQA community as well as a strong commitment to their academics, campus involvement and community service.

"The award came as a complete shock to me," Vince says. "I've never been so surprised and touched. It's a once-in-a-lifetime honor to have a LGBT service award bear my name."

According to Doris Dirks, Coordinator of Student Organizations for Social Justice and the LGBT Resource Center, "Vince volunteered to be a Safe Space panel member and discussed his coming out process with attendees at trainings offered during my first year as Coordinator of the LGBT Resource Center in 2007. In 2008, Vince trained to be a Safe Space trainer and took it upon himself to offer to add a section to the training on LGBT history with a specific focus on Queer NU. Rainbow Alliance students were so taken with this presentation that they asked him to present a session for Rainbow Week of 2008 on NU LGBT history. The current Rainbow Alliance students recognized that Vince offered an important link to LGBT student activism on the NU campus. Hence the recognition is for past and current contributions to the LGBT community at NU."

Actually, Vince's track record of contributing to LGBT activities at Northwestern goes back more than 30 years. As an undergraduate, in 1973, he became president of the undergraduate student group then known as the Gay Liberation Front. During his presidency, he brought a public face to the organization by holding regular meetings at Norris, appearing on a local PBS talk show, and organizing a speaker's bureau that held fireside chats in NU dorms and for other community and school groups in Evanston. He's been interviewed numerous times by the Daily Northwestern on campus LGBT issues, and has recently begun compiling a written history of the university's LGBT community. He is currently a member of the Gay and Lesbian University Union (GLUU), an organization for NU faculty and staff, as well as NUGALA, the official NU alumni club for LGBT alums.

Vince himself was awarded with a plaque that says: Presented to Vince McCoy. In recognition of your contributions to the LGBTQA community at Northwestern University, the LGBT Support Network Leadership Award has been renamed the 'Vince McCoy Leadership Award' in your honor.'