The Global Aggie Award for LGBTQIA+ Rights, launched thanks to former UC Davis provost and executive vice chancellor and former interim chancellor Ralph J. Hexter and his husband Manfred Kollmeier, aims to support the well-being and rights of the LGBTQIA+ community and raise awareness of the challenges it faces in countries across the globe.

“UC Davis is deeply committed to excellence in diversity, equity and inclusion and to building a more just world,” said Joanna Regulska, vice provost and dean of Global Affairs at the institution.

“The Global Aggie Award for LGBTQIA+ Rights will broaden global learning opportunities”

“We recognise that ensuring LGBTQIA+ individuals’ well-being and rights, both locally and globally, is critical. We’re also deeply committed to supporting and engaging our students in advancing these efforts through a variety of global experiences.

The institution’s Global Learning Hub in Global Affairs will manage student applications to a range of activities such as internships or projects with organisations promoting and addressing LGBTQIA+ well-being and/or rights, conduct research with a global dimension, or pursue other global learning opportunities centred on these issues.

“The fund will make a difference in the lives of many, now and in the future,” Regulska added

“Coming ourselves originally from different countries, we have always been aware that the pathways by which LGBTQIA+ people have come out, come together, and then formed communities vary widely around the world,” Hexter and Kollmeier said in a statement.

“It is particularly important for those of us in the US to learn about these different histories and contexts beyond our borders, and in this instance, the different ways communities in other countries have resisted discrimination and fought for their rights – with varying success, for some LGBTQIA+ individuals face serious threats, even death, in their home countries.”

UC Davis’ Global Affairs has a goal within its Global Education for All to provide global learning opportunities to 100% of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.

“UC Davis, with its ambitious goal of Global Education for All, its strong LGBTQIA+ community and programming, and its engagement in Human Rights, can now encourage and support students to learn about and engage these issues in globally-oriented projects,” Hexter and Kollmeier added.

“The Global Aggie Award for LGBTQIA+ Rights will broaden global learning opportunities and increase students’ global awareness, engagement with global diversity, and involvement with global action to ensure equity and justice for LGBTQIA+ people,” Regulska concluded.