Aishwarya Iyer


Her Path to a New Community

She/her/hers 1st year graduates student in the Rollins School of Public Health. LGBT Life.

How did Aishwarya Iyer become an ambassador for the identity spaces? She saw a flyer on Instagram and it caught her eye because she’d done something similar at her undergraduate university.

Aishwarya spent her first year as a graduate student at Rollins School of Public Health trying to find a sense of community at Emory. The COVID-19 pandemic hindered her efforts because she had to experience most of the year on her computer screen.

So, when she saw the flyer seeking ambassadors, Aishwarya recognized an opportunity to meet like-minded students and create bonds that would transcend Zoom meetings. While her service as an ambassador for the LGBT Life space was virtual, she found that the working sessions were anything but distant and boring.

“Here’s my community at Emory. This small group of people I’ve built this connection with,” she says, adding that the connection only made her more excited with the work they were doing.

All this collaboration was for a space that is “going to be for us in the future and that day is coming soon. We’ll be able to be on campus and enjoy this space together.”

According to Aishwarya, she’s most excited about being able to walk into the space and see the things that she and other ambassadors suggested. She says her experience wouldn’t have been as positive if the Perkins&Will architects and the Emory Campus Planning staff with the office of Planning, Design, and Construction hadn’t been as open to hearing the ambassadors’ feedback. They made her time as an ambassador that much more meaningful.

What does Aishwarya consider the most important thing about identity spaces? “For a lot of marginalized identities, life on campus can be very isolating, and the biggest purpose of these spaces is to give us a place to exist,” she says.

The opportunity for the identity spaces to be shaped by student voices made an huge impact on this student ambassador. She says the fact that she felt her voice as a student was being heard set this project apart from others.

When the LGBT space does open, Aishwarya thinks she’ll probably be emotional when she first crosses the threshold. For her, this was not only a space that she helped design, but one that set her on a path to her feeling a sense of community at Emory.

What started online can now be experienced with excitement, enjoyment and, finally, in person.