Student Center to Feature Dinkle-Mas Suite for LGBTQ* Resources

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 2, 2018) — Space in the new Gatton Student Center at the University of Kentucky has been dedicated for an expanded home for the Office of LGBTQ* Resources that will serve the entire campus community.

“Earlier this year the University of Kentucky received a perfect score for campus policies, programs and practices that define the Campus Pride Index ― the only university to receive a perfect score in the Southeastern Conference. We are honored by this recognition and what it communicates to our campus community and prospective members of the UK family,” said President Eli Capilouto.

“But it is the intent and purposeful action behind these awards that matters to all people in our community. With abiding commitment, we continue to strive to be a home for all people and a place where every Wildcat can succeed. With the support of Jim Dinkle, more students will know what it means to be home at the University of Kentucky,” he said.

The Campus Pride Index is a vital, voluntary tool to assist campuses in learning ways to improve their LGBTQ* campus life and ultimately shape the educational experience to be more inclusive, welcoming and respectful of LGBTQ* and ally people. It evaluates issues such as: 

• Institutional Commitment: A dedicated resource center staff trained and motivated to create LGBTQ* support services, safe zones and alumni groups.
• Academic Life: LGBTQ*-specific studies programs, course offerings, training on gender identity and sexual orientation issues.
• Residence Life: Specific LGBTQ* living-learning communities, gender-inclusive campus housing; staff trained on LGBTQ* issues and concerns.
• Campus Health and Safety: Hate crime prevention programs, campus police trained in sexual orientation and gender identity issues.

As every student knows, achieving a perfect score is not at all easy, and the Campus Pride Index score is due in great part to the leadership provided by Vice President for Institutional Diversity Sonja Feist-Price and the LGBTQ* Resources Director Lance Poston. The recognition is a testament to how hard they have worked in recent years and how much UK students appreciate and benefit from their efforts.  

“The expanded space for our LGBTQ* Resources Center reflects this institution’s steadfast commitment to being a community of belonging for everyone who calls UK home,” said UK Board Chairman Britt Brockman. “My friend, Jim Dinkle, who has so generously donated to make this space possible, deeply understands the importance of that commitment and the steps our alma mater has taken over the years to become that community of belonging for everyone, regardless of identity, perspective, background or beliefs. Those are the values he represented and lived as a student. They have been the values that have marked his career and life since he left UK as well. That this beautiful new space will be open in our Student Center, which will be the living room of a vibrant, dynamic campus where important conversations and dialogue will take place, makes it even more special.”

Located on the second floor of the new student center, the new space will include the Dinkle-Mas Suite, the main hub for LGBTQ* Resources. The suite is possible thanks to the generous gift of $250,000 from Jim Dinkle, a December 1982 (communications) alumnus who served as his college’s senator (1981-82) in the UK Student Government Association as well as SGA president (1982-83) and Board of Trustees voting member.

After graduation, Dinkle worked as an aide to former Kentucky Gov. Wallace Wilkinson in the Chief of Staff's office. From Frankfort, he moved to Chicago, to become special assistant to Richard M. Daley, Chicago’s 43rd mayor. In the late ‘90s, reporting solely to the mayor, he led the nation’s first brownfields redevelopment program, administering a $50 million HUD (United States Department of Housing and Urban Development) guaranteed loan to remediate and redevelop over 300 acres of environmentally contaminated properties citywide.

After the Chicago Mayor’s office, Dinkle continued a career in economic development. For five years he was Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway's Midwest manager of economic development, responsible for Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Currently, he is the executive director of FirstPark, a commerce and technology park along Interstate 95 in Oakland, Maine, near Portland.

Dinkle became aware of the LGBTQ* Resource Center through Facebook a couple of years ago, and subsequently introduced himself to Poston, and met with Capilouto in December 2017.

“Upon greeting me in his office, (President Capilouto) shook my hand and said, ‘Welcome home.’ Those two words shook me to my core,” Dinkle said. “I felt as though I had walked across a time bridge. I found Dr. Capilouto to be intensely committed to the LGBTQ* Resource Center, a man of great vision for the university, keenly aware of UK's place in the hearts and minds of Kentuckians in all 120 counties and knowing UK's reach outside of Kentucky's borders.”

“I was not ‘out’ in college,” Dinkle said. “It was a lonely feeling knowing that I was gay, but at that time there were not the resources available that exist today. As I told Lance Poston, I never want to know of a young person today at the University of Kentucky who feels as conflicted, torn or alone as I once felt when I was a student 35 years ago. It is who I am, and it is the way that — for whatever reason — I was created. I am proud of who I am.”

After about a year of consideration, Dinkle and his partner of 18 years, Carlos Mas Rivera, “agreed that our passion was for the work that Lance, other UK LGBTQ* alumni and the university were dedicating to students and alumni. We felt it was time to step up and give our support.”

Dinkle said the specific purpose of the Dinkle-Mas LGBTQ* Inclusion Fund is to promote LGBTQ* financial literacy, entrepreneurship and leadership development.

“I invite others who share this interest to contribute to the fund by contacting the LGBTQ* Resources Center or me directly,” Dinkle said.

The Dinkle-Mas Suite will function in two ways, according to Poston, the LGBTQ* Resources director. It will include a formal office setting to conduct business for LGBTQ* Resources. But the area that energizes Poston the most is the new multipurpose community room, which will include primary meeting space that will be especially important to student groups.

Vice President for Institutional Diversity Sonja Feist-Price said, “Spaces like this are so incredibly important to our undergraduates. On a diverse campus such as the University of Kentucky’s there is as much to learn outside the classroom with fellow students as there is to learn listening to a professor’s lecture in a classroom.

“I’ve long been convinced that young people learn as much if not more from their peers as they do from teachers and professors. Professors can’t teach a student how to get along with someone from the other side of the world; students can. Teachers can’t explain how it feels to be separated from everything you know and love; a fellow student can,” Feist-Price said.

“I feel confident there will be an abundance of sharing and learning in the Dinkle-Mas Suite of UK’s new LGBTQ* Resources offices,” she said.