Standing Out

For Cole Brunelli ’23, Santa Clara University didn’t make the sunniest first impression. “My mom had flown me across the country on my birthday for this tour, and it was just pouring rain.” Despite this rare stormy day, he quickly discovered a sense of community shining through the dark clouds. “I decided that Santa Clara was a good place to be on a bad day, and that's definitely rung true the last four years.”

Since then, Brunelli was inspired to foster that same sense of community he discovered on that rainy day. As a Bronco, he was a student ambassador for two years and, for three years, served in the Associated Student Government (ASG) where he was president of SCU Splash for its inaugural program. More recently, he was co-president of a new LGBTQ+ student organization for professional development called Queer & Qualified.

Since its founding in 2021, Queer & Qualified has held resume-building workshops with the Career Center, facilitated Zoom panels with queer professionals, hosted a lecture with the Stanford Law School on trans rights and name change procedures, and organized queer-friendly recruiting events with Accenture.

Brunelli graduates this spring with an economics major and a real estate minor, which will come in handy when he starts his new job as a real estate investment analyst at Stanford University. But before he dons his cap and gets to work, we spoke with Brunelli about the importance of community at Santa Clara.

What inspired you to get so involved in student life when you came to Santa Clara?

I've always been astonished by the work ethic that students have here. On LinkedIn, I’m always seeing my friends get internships or research opportunities. It makes Santa Clara feel like a real work-hard, play-hard school, which has motivated me to pursue more opportunities for myself.

And with its smaller size, Santa Clara makes a lot of activities really accessible, which I appreciated as someone who was pretty shy in high school. Otherwise, I would have never pictured myself running for a Senator spot in ASG.

I think, in terms of Queer & Qualified too, I never went to my high school’s LGBTQ+ group as an out gay student. It wasn't until I came here that I found a place where I was able to feel truly myself, which encouraged me to start this community.

What was the most meaningful part of serving in student government?

Getting to interact with people from every single part of campus. If I wasn't involved in ASG, I wouldn't have many of the friends that I have now, and I wouldn't be exposed to so many different perspectives.

It was really inspiring too because it felt like we all cared about the same things—not only loving Santa Clara as it is, but also understanding that there's room for it to grow, just as we’re growing too.

Between student government and being a student ambassador, how has representing Santa Clara’s community changed you?

A huge part of what I loved about being a student ambassador is the impact that you have on someone else's life trajectory. One of the best experiences that I had as a student ambassador was leading a mom and her daughter on my tour. Afterward, I remember the mom came up to me asking what it was like to be a queer student on campus. I shared my honest experience, and flash forward, the daughter decided to come here. She later joined Queer & Qualified and told me that my answer on that tour was the reason she came to Santa Clara.

It really showed me the impact of being authentic and the conversations that you are able to have in that capacity.

Tell us a little about Queer & Qualified. Why is this group’s mission important?

For me, my co-president Myles Clark ’23, and our founder Obasi Lewis ‘20, the goal with Queer & Qualified was to make sure that all queer students at Santa Clara not only have a social community, but that we also advocate for ourselves after college and in the workplace.

Many individuals, especially queer students, don’t know their rights in the workplace or how they might be treated because of their identities. So, we highlight queer-friendly companies, queer-related conferences, and other education around that lived experience in the workplace.

Why was it important to you that there are LGBTQ+-friendly spaces like Queer & Qualified on campus?

Since COVID interrupted my freshman and sophomore year, I never really got the chance to fully immerse myself in any sort of queer experience on campus, and when I got here, it felt like there wasn’t really a single, large queer coalition on campus. Obasi, Myles, and I wanted to fill that gap.

So, for the first couple of years, we would bring Queer & Qualified members to the Gay and Lesbian Museum in San Francisco while also hosting professional events like resume-building workshops. It was confusing to some people, but to us, it made sense that we had to create a community before we could host events for them.

Luckily, over the last year, we’ve noticed that there are a lot of other, new queer organizations on campus like the Queer People of Color Association (QPOCA). Between that and SCCAP’s Queer and Allies advocacy group, I think our coalition is growing, and we’re all working to bridge that gap for our community.

What was your proudest moment at Santa Clara?

Queer & Qualified had an event last year with CrowdStrike, a Sunnyvale-based cybersecurity company. They’re a big player in Silicon Valley and a really amazing company when it comes to DEI—especially around being queer in the workplace. 

My friend, Molly Tucker ’22 loved the presentation so much that she reached out and ended up getting a job with them.

Since then, we’ve held another event with CrowdStrike and we had a full-circle moment where Molly gave that same presentation on the company, her experience there, and how Queer & Qualified impacted her.

I could just tell that she was so happy, so it was really meaningful that we could make such an impact on even one student.