UAF scholarship supports LGBTQ2IA+ students since 2011

Bryana Garcia-DeLaCruz at UAF’s 2022 commencement.
Bryana Garcia-DeLaCruz at UAF’s 2022 commencement.

As we near the end of celebrating Pride month at UAF, we would like to highlight a scholarship that supports LGBTQ2IA+ students and allies from the UAF community. In 2011, a group of UAF alumni and friends established the LGBT Friends and Allies Scholarship, which is the only one of its kind in the University of Alaska system. Most of the alums who came together to create this scholarship identify as part of the LGBTQ2IA+ community and wanted to create a fund that would help similar students and allies such as themselves. 

Since its inception,10 UAF students have been supported by the scholarship. Pictured here is Bryana Garcia-DeLaCruz, the current LGBT scholarship recipient, a first generation student who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in child development and family studies in 2022. Garcia-DeLaCruz expressed her gratitude for this support, “Mahsi' Choo! (Thank you!) for all that you have done; it's donors like you that make taking summer classes and continuing education possible during such hard times.” 

We are proud of UAF’s culture of respect, diversity, inclusion and caring for all members of our UAF community who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, two-spirit, intersex, and asexual, and other individuals of the LGBTQ2IA+ communities. Please consider supporting students like Bryana by making a gift today at https://bit.ly/uaflgbtallies.