Students and campus resource center staff will publish Perspectives Magazine, a new annual publication sponsored by the Women’s and Gender Center, Queer Resource Center and Multicultural Resource Center. The magazine, expected to first be released in early March, will include both personal writing by Amherst community members and information relating to issues of identity.

Angie Tissi-Gassoway, the director of the Queer Resource Center and Women’s and Gender Center, has a leading role in the new publication. She described Perspectives as a new, intersectional outlet for students to explore their identities.

“The purpose of Perspectives is to create a collaborative publication within the three resource centers that highlights, honors and celebrates the intersections of our various identities, and to provide varying perspectives of how these identities inform our lived experiences both on and off campus and as students, staff, and faculty of the Amherst College community,” she said.

Andrew Kim ’18E, the publicity coordinator for the three resource centers, is the chief organizer behind Perspectives Magazine. In addition to Kim, students representing each of the centers are involved in planning, writing and editing. Rachel Nghe ’16 represents the Multicultural Resource Center and is a Peer Diversity Educator there. Sam O’Brien ’18 and Alex Teyie ’16 represent the Women’s and Gender Center, and Evelyn Touchette ’18 represents the Queer Resource Center.

The college’s resource centers have issued their own publications in the past. The Multicultural Resource Center continues to release the annual Identity Magazine, while the Queer Resource Center published OutLoud Magazine, an LGBT-related informational publication in the spring and fall of 2014.

“I wanted to make two very distinct aspects of the publication,” Kim said. “OutLoud was the inspiration for the more informational, center-created component of this magazine. Identity helped [inspire] the open-submission part of the magazine.”

According to Kim, the open-submissions section of the magazine will emphasize personal reflections on race, class and religion by students.

Organizers began publicizing the magazine and asking for submissions after last Thanksgiving break. Kim, Multicultural Resource Center Interim Director Adrianna Turner ’14, and director of the Women’s and Gender Center and Queer Resource Center Angie Tissi-Gassoway will edit informational content written by the centers. In addition, student staff working at the centers will help edit student submissions.

“Originally I wanted to start publicizing this much earlier in the fall semester, but because [former Multicultural Resource Center director] Mariana Cruz resigned her position quite suddenly, there was a lot of shifting and confusion within the resource centers,” Kim said.

Nghe wrote two articles on behalf of the Multicultural Resource Center for the magazine. One article was about the controversial topic of affirmative action, while the other provides information about the Multicultural Resource Center library.

“[Affirmative action] is a component of multiculturalism, and I thought it was a good idea to educate people about it because it’s such a controversial issue,” Nghe said. “I researched common myths and attempted to debunk them, so that readers have a clearer idea about affirmative action.”

According to Nghe, the launch of Perspectives Magazine contributes to the Multicultural Resource Center’s mission of supporting discussions of identity on campus.

“The Multicultural Resource Center is a space that makes you think about your identity and sometimes helps you form your identity,” Nghe said. “It’s a very comfortable space for me to express my identities. Perspectives Magazine is a way for that to continue, allowing students to think about, perform and share their identities in published form.”

Perspectives will be accepting submissions until Feb. 21.