Acorn

Issue date: 2/29/08 Section: TRUE DREW

Media Credit: Charlotte Hammond

Jen Dugan wasn't always Jen Dugan. Or, at least, she wasn't always the Jen Dugan we see leading discussions on gender-neutral housing, penning inspirational messages in chalk on the path or programming her heart out in the University Center. As the senior coordinator for The Alliance and a general campus activist, Dugan describes her freshman self as "shy, timid, afraid to take action"-an antonym to the outspoken woman she is today.

Dugan explains how that came to be, brushing her platinum blond bangs out of her porcelain face. Soon after coming out her sophomore year, she was asked to join a panel on diversity that the University was holding to heal the wounds of April 2005's April Fool's edition of The Acorn.

"Life is too short not to do the right thing," Dugan says, so convincingly that one conversation with her can spark a passion in the most apathetic of students. But to Dugan, this passion was dormant until the people surrounding her at Drew found out the true Dugan, and loved her for it. "They suddenly accepted me," she says. "It made me extremely passionate. It's my driving reason for what I do today."

And with all of what Dugan does today, she has to stay positive. She fights for tolerance and works herself to the limit to spread awareness. Calling her a campus leader is an understatement, but she does it all looking at the bright side. "Instead of complaining about what's wrong, talk about what's right and how to make it better," she says. And she says this because of a realization she had one self-reflective night in a hospital bed. "I was thinking how many good people I had in my life, and so much I had been doing was addressing the negative in things," she says. "I made a commitment then to be very vocal about seeing the positive things in life."

Dugan is the person responsible for the words that stare up at you from the path on many occasions-"You are loved," "You are beautiful" and "Love is all you need." They speak volumes to anyone who walks to Brother's College that day, and they exist because one night, Dugan was feeling down. "I was having a fight, and feeling really sad and emo, so I just took some sidewalk chalk and started writing 'you are loved'," she says. "I just didn't want anyone else to feel the way I did."

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools