From the Q Centre to Queerposium, student-led community is shaping Pride at UCalgary

For Josiah Lansang, a sense of belonging began with a visit to the University of Calgary's Students’ Union’s Q Centre. 

When Lansang started as an undergraduate student, he was looking for a student-led community where he could feel a sense of belonging. At the Q Centre, he found a dedicated physical space, peer support and people who understood his experience.

That initial connection became a turning point. After finding support in the Q Centre’s peer-led spaces, Lansang became a peer-support volunteer himself.

“As I was benefiting from these communities, I also wanted to help build these communities,” says Lansang, BSc'24, now a Master of Science student in computer science.

His journey from visitor to volunteer reflects a central thread in the evolution of Pride at UCalgary: Students are not only accessing support, but helping to define and build it.

The Q Centre began with student conversations in 2009 and opened its doors in 2010. In 2014, it moved from a small room in Volunteer Services to its current MacEwan Student Centre location, allowing its peer support, programming and community events to grow. Today, the Q Centre remains student-led and offers a place to study, socialize, access resources and connect with peer-support volunteers.

Over the past decade, that student-led model has extended beyond one physical space.

For Aylan Vincent, a fourth-year electrical engineering student and co-founder of EngiQueers, faculty-based communities create another important entry point. EngiQueers is one of several social and cultural student groups in the Schulich School of Engineering.

“The best thing is the queer-led student initiatives,” Vincent says. “We know what we need. We know what we want, and we know what’s falling through the cracks.”

Student groups often work together to share resources, organize events and create opportunities for people to meet one another. Vincent says that support from the university can be most effective when students retain the ability to identify their own priorities and turn them into action.

That spirit of connection has shaped Lansang’s experience as a graduate student. After completing his undergraduate degree, he became involved with GSA², the Graduate Students’ Association’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance. Earlier this year, he also helped establish UCalgary’s Queer Research Hub, a multidisciplinary community-led initiative that connects students, staff and faculty conducting queer research across disciplines.

The hub’s inaugural Queerposium in May brought together nearly 100 participants from UCalgary and other post-secondary institutions to share research, build relationships and celebrate queer joy. For Lansang, the gathering made visible a community that can otherwise feel dispersed across departments and faculties.

For Lansang and Vincent, the most meaningful change is the opportunity for students to move from finding community to creating it for others.

“I hope students will carry with them the absolute drive and, at times, audacity of students who are engaged in these community efforts,” Vincent says. “If we only have five volunteers, we can still do crazy things.”

“Things are tough right now, I think queer and trans people in Alberta are feeling it. But I’d tell new students that they belong on campus, they have a family here at UCalgary, and there are so many students who want to welcome them,” says Lansang. 

At UCalgary, that message is carried forward in peer-support conversations, faculty-based communities and research networks built by students. Pride is not confined to a single season — it is an ongoing commitment to make belonging visible and create more ways for people to find one another.