Gender equality organization relaunches

Students+Advocating+Gender+Equality+plan+for+the+upcoming+semester+at+their+first+meeting.++The+club+was+disbanded+in+spring+of+2014+and+is+now+being+re-established+with+a+mix+of+old+and+new+members.

Jamal Melancon

Students Advocating Gender Equality plan for the upcoming semester at their first meeting. The club was disbanded in spring of 2014 and is now being re-established with a mix of old and new members.

Jamal Melancon

The Students Advocating Gender Equality club was disbanded in spring 2014, but thanks to two students, SAGE is now being relaunched.

Neither Amelia Seidel nor Lauren Stroh, both English sophomores, has started a club before, but after former SAGE member and Students Against Sexual Assault founder Michael Olausen approached Seidel about starting SAGE back up, the two agreed to be co-presidents.

“Lauren Stroh and I decided to revive the club last semester when Michael Olausen brought it to my attention that SAGE had died but that he wasn’t the one that should bring it back,” Seidel said.

SAGE was known for being a vocal and active club in the past, most notably with its “I’m a Feminist Because…” campaign in 2012. Members proposed revamping the campaign in SAGE’s first informational meeting on Jan. 20.

“When I first came to Loyola, SAGE was one of the more active student organizations,” Olausen said. “It was always opening up dialogues and questioning the status quo, which is what attracted me to it in the first place.”

The club plans to engage students by holding events such as movie screenings, panels and book club meetings for its members.

Peter Herrick, political science sophomore, was a member of SAGE before it was disbanded.  He said he is thrilled that SAGE is returning to campus.

“In the current climate of increasing overall awareness and open discussion of gender equality, I think it is vital that a liberal and forward-thinking campus like Loyola has a gender advocacy group on campus,” Herrick said.

SAGE’s first informational meeting since its relaunch involved addressing how it can collaborate with others, including Students Against Sexual Assault, the Loyola Women’s Resource Center and Tulane professors interested in contributing.

“SAGE and SASA will definitely be doing events together,” Olausen said. “First, we’d love to coordinate a Loyola–wide discussion — town hall style — on the impact of sexual assault within our community. We want to know what we should be doing in order to fulfill our respective missions, and we can’t do that without the input from the Loyola community as a whole.”

Julie Thibodaux, director of the Women’s Resource Center, explained that it was essential that SAGE and the center work together, offering the center as a location for meetings.

The next SAGE meeting will take place on Feb. 3 in the Women’s Resource Center at 6:30 p.m. for a screening of “The Color Purple.”