LGBTQ Center assistant director says goodbye to UNC

Angel Collie will always bleed blue — no matter the shade.

After two years as assistant director of UNC’s LGBTQ Center, Collie has moved to become the assistant director for the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity at Duke University.

But the decision to leave wasn’t easy.

“I don’t want to compare the two institutions because my decision to leave isn’t because UNC is terrible,” he said. “I was an undergrad at Carolina and I love UNC.”

Collie said his decision to accept his new position at Duke came down to a feeling of insecurity.

“I think at the end of the day with Margaret Spellings being hired and some of her comments on supporting (House Bill 2) like calling it a lifestyle is really hurtful to the LGBTQ folks,” he said. “It made me feel unsettled and unsure about the longevity and the security in my position and my job.”

Collie said he felt Duke offered more protection around legislation like HB2 because, as a private institution, it is not required to enforce the new state law.

“I felt like I had the support from the people I worked for directly (at UNC) and the people of Student Affairs,” he said.

“I felt like their heart was in the right place and I think there’s a lot of political pressure with the University being so tied to the state of the legislature that it put them in a difficult position and I understand that.”

Collie administered UNC’s Safe Zone program, which is designed to build a network of allies who are welcoming to people of all sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions.

“He got to be a really solid facilitator and had a really nice way of engaging people in conversations that they might feel a little anxious about,” said Terri Phoenix, director of UNC’s LGBTQ Center.

Collie also brought his program W(holy) Queer to UNC in an effort to provide discussions that focused on the intersection of spirituality, sexuality and gender identity.

Adrianne Gibilisco, the spokesperson for the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, said Collie’s program was very successful.

“He leaves a great legacy, achieved in only a few years,” Gibilisco said. “His integrity, kindness and honest desire to support our students so that they can reach personal and academic excellence has been felt by countless students, staff and faculty alike and he will be greatly missed.”

Collie received a Master of Divinity from Yale University and hopes to encourage more discussion around sexuality and spirituality.

“There’s an element of being able to work with the Divinity School (at Duke) and having conversations around sexuality and spirituality that I can have there that I wouldn’t necessarily have been able to have at Carolina,” he said.

Collie started working at Duke on Aug. 9, but he said the transition hasn’t been easy.

“I think it was hard to go from a place where I had a lot of really valuable relationships and (was) supporting a lot of students,” he said. “There are still a lot of students I’ve committed to being in contact with to be a support and resource for them.”

Collie said his work with UNC isn’t finished.

“If we could just get them all in the same room to think about the struggles we are having as LGBTQ centers in the state where HB2 is a reality and discuss some of our common struggles and the best practices in responding to those — I hope that it’s a different way of working with UNC,” he said.

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