In addition to having the largest gay and lesbian library of any
college campus in the country, the UCLA Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender Resource Center now boasts a state-of-the-art computer
lab with the official opening of the David Bohnett CyberCenter on
Thursday.
The lab is the twentieth LGBT computer center in the United
States since Bohnett, the founder of the Web site Geocities, funded
the first one in 1999 at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center
““ but this lab is the first at a college or university.
At Thursday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, Ronni Sanlo, the
director of the LGBT center, expressed her gratitude to Bohnett for
his contribution which, she said will aid the “growth of
academic and personal success” of the students who take
advantage of the lab. She also said the fact that this lab was
opening was indicative of the kind of support the LGBT center has
received from UCLA administrators.
About a year ago, the LGBT center moved from a small room in
Kinsey Hall to a 1,600-square-foot area in the Student Activities
Center and Sanlo was in charge of designing the space.
“UCLA gave us this large space (and) I knew we had to have
a computer center,” she said. So, she designed an area for
computers even though the center could not afford them at the time.
Though Bohnett had not yet set up a CyberCenter at a university,
Sanlo decided it was worth a shot to write a grant proposal.
“I wrote the grant proposal indicating there was an
incredible need among our students (for a computer lab),”
Sanlo said.
Bohnett, who heads the David Bohnett Foundation, began setting
up CyberCenters around the country in order to give the LGBT
community a comfortable and accepting place to do research, write
resumes or just surf the internet.
While attending the University of Michigan, Bohnett worked at a
hot line designed to help gay and lesbian students cope with the
difficulties they faced as a result of their sexual orientation.
After many of the callers expressed suicidal desires, Bohnett
resolved to help the LGBT community gain confidence within
themselves and acceptance within American culture.
“I vowed that I would do everything in my power to help
lesbians and gay men feel good about themselves,” he said
Thursday. Bohnett attained the means to help the LGBT community
when, in 1999, he sold Geocities to internet giant Yahoo.
Bohnett said he hopes that the CyberCenters that bear his name
will give the LGBT community the opportunity to do research and
otherwise utilize the internet in an accepting environment.
Clay Doyle, a UCLA alumnus who graduated in “the late
seventies,” was at Thursday’s opening and said he was
impressed by the progress the LGBT community has made on campus
since he attended.
“When I was in school there wasn’t anything that was
very visible for gay students,” he said. “The school
itself was very unsupportive of anything gay.”
Doyle, who founded TenPercent, the UCLA student magazine that
covers issues concerning the LGBT community (which recently changed
its name to OutWrite), acknowledged that the UCLA
administration’s views on LGBT students seems to have changed
since he was a student.