Pride Award Recipients 2024
This year at LavGrad Celebration, we recognized six individuals with a Pride Award for their contributions to making UND a more inclusive place for students. The Pride Awards were created in 2018 as a way to recognize oustanding individuals in the UND community who have contributed to the advancement of LGBTQ+ inclusion, community, education, support, programming, and advocacy. Since 2018, there have been 23 Pride Award recipients. This year’s recipients are as follows:
LGBTQ+ Advocate Award
The LGBTQ+ Advocate Award recognizes a faculty or staff member of the UND community that actively contributes to a positive campus for LGBTQ+ individuals. This individual may have achieved this through advancing LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum, expanding LGBTQ+ research in their field, engages in work to improve campus policies and climate, and goes above and beyond to create a safe and inclusive environment for LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff.
This year, four individuals were selected for the LGBTQ+ Advocate Award. Sonja Anderson, Susan Indvik, Sarah Prosje, and Brenda Useldinger worked collaboratively to advocate for queer and trans inclusive curriculum and practices in healthcare. They worked with the Pride Center team to develop content and advocate for nursing students to be aware and build understanding of LGBTQ+ issues and experience in healthcare to become more inclusive practitioners. They take conversations from lectures and apply to real life examples and educate on how to advocate for greater policies and practices in LGBTQ+ inclusive medicine locally, regionally, and nationally.
Outstanding Ally to the LGBTQ+ Community Award
The Outstanding Ally to the LGBTQ+ community award is given to an individual who has demonstrated an ongoing commitment and dedication to the UND LGBTQ+ community through allyship. This individual goes above and beyond to advocate for LGBTQ+ students, faculty, staff, and actively engages in work to create a more inclusive and equitable campus community.
The award recipient for this year was Dr. Yi-Ping Hsieh as someone who truly understands the importance of allyship in a field of study that works with people, advocates for social justice, and fights for human rights. Dr. Hseih’s work in this area has demonstrated a commitment to the LGBTQ+ as she applies educational topics on LGBTQ+ issues in her social work courses. Her goal as an educator is to better equip social work students with the tools and understanding to engage students in an inclusive practice as they enter the social work field.
LGBTQ+ Student Leader Award
The LGBTQ+ Student Leader Award recognizes one student for their outstanding leadership, commitment, dedication and service within the University for the LGBTQ+ community. This individual serves as a role model for their peers and demonstrates an ongoing commitment to LGBTQ+ leadership, advocacy, activism, and education.
The LGBTQ+ Student Leader Award recipient for this year was Mishaye Belgarde. In 2022 this student took initiative to re-start the Multicultural Law Student Association with an emphasis on supporting the LGBTQ+ community and LGBTQ+ rights. After creating a strong foundation the first year, Mishaye maintained an active presence as President for the past two years. From hosting fundraisers to raising funds for the Trevor Project, creating awareness about LGBTQ+ youth bullying, organizing LGBTQ+ advocacy/ally workshops for law students, to organizing clothing drives for the Pride Center’s Gender Expression closet and holding a panel discussion at the North Dakota LGBTQIA2S+ Summit, Mishaye has made such an impact to the LGBTQ+ community.
