SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – October 27, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) – The executive director of the Utah Pride Center has resigned after 11 weeks in the position.
Marian Edmonds-Allen resigned effective noon on Monday, October 26. She had been in the executive director position since August 2015.
In a press release, the Pride Center said: “In her short tenure, Edmonds-Allen advanced the mission of the Utah Pride Center with her efforts in reaching out to community members, conducting a needs assessment and identifying in greater detail the areas of focus and work that lay ahead. At the same time she came to a decision that the work ahead was not something she wanted to take on.”
Edmonds-Allen said in a statement on her Facebook page: “To me, community comes first, period. This is the statement I gave to the Executive Board yesterday, and it remains true today: ‘After an 11-week assessment of UPC, it is my recommendation that it be predominantly community led and operated. To prolong existing resources for the benefit of the community, I have recommended that the ED position be eliminated. I resigned October 26th.”‘
A national search was conducted before the appointment of Edmonds-Allen. She was named Q Salt Lake’s 2014 Person of the Year and a 2015 Petra Foundation Fellow as an, “unsung leader who is making distinctive contributions to the rights, autonomy and dignity of millions who are marginalized in America” for her collaborative work with families, community organizations, government agencies and religious institutions to prevent LGBT youth homelessness and suicide in Utah.
She was previously the National Program Director for the Family Acceptance Project, a research, intervention, education and policy initiative that works to decrease risk and to promote well-being for LGBT children and adolescents in the context of families, culture and faith communities.
