The 11th annual Emory Pride Banquet will be held Tuesday, Feb. 25, from 6:30–8:30 p.m. in the Cox Hall Ballroom. The featured speaker will be Kecia Cunningham, a commissioner for the city of Decatur. Cunningham is the first openly gay, black elected official in Georgia. Live music will be provided by Jazznomad.

Tickets will be available at the door. They are $5 for students and $10 for faculty, staff and visitors. The banquet is presented by the President’s Commission on LGBT Concerns, and the particulars were a centerpiece of its Feb. 18 meeting in 400 Administration.

Doors will open at 6:30 p.m., a buffet dinner will follow at 7, Cunningham will speak at 7:30, and, the presentation of the LGBT essay awards by President Bill Chace and other programming will follow.

In other business, the commission moved to work toward producing a joint statement from the three president’s commissions supporting the Carter Center’s resolution asking the administration to suspend Emory’s pre-employment drug testing policy.

That statement, pending approval by the President’s Commission on the Status of Women and the President’s Commission on the Status of Minorities, would be presented at the next University Senate meeting, Feb. 25.

The commission voted to change its bylaws, mandating at least one commission member from Oxford College. The change included a stipulation to compensate that member for travel if deemed necessary.

Membership and outreach chair Catherine Shiel distributed membership nomination forms. Completed forms are due to Shiel by March 21. Her campus mail address is IA Research, 1762 Clifton Road.

Commission members voted to help fund and cosponsor the LGBT film festival later this semester, as well as the “Diversity as Value Added” symposium, March 3–5.

The next LGBT meeting will be Tuesday, March 18, at 5:30 p.m. in 400 Administration.

If you have question or comment for LGBT, send e-mail to chair Kathy McKee at kmckee@emory.edu.