Local
Comings & Goings
CNN honors Christensen; Verona lands new post at AU
The ‘Comings & Goings’ column chronicles important life changes of Blade readers.
The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].
Congratulations to Jen Christensen who has been awarded the 2016 CNN Diversity Ovation Award. Christensen is the current president of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalism Association and exemplifies NLGJA’s commitment to diversity and its mission to ensure fair and accurate coverage of LGBTQ issues and people.
When announcing the award, CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker said, “In her leadership roles, Jen consistently helps newsrooms around the country better understand how they can create more inclusive newsrooms in which people of diverse backgrounds can thrive.”
Christensen said, “One of the most important jobs we have as journalists is to create opportunities to give a voice to those who may not otherwise have a voice. Winning this award for recognizing the importance of including those voices in our stories, as well as an additional recognition of all the important work that NLGJA does to make all newsrooms more inclusive, means the world to me.”
Christensen is a producer and video editor for CNN’s health, medical and wellness unit, and is also a writer and producer for CNN.com. She has been a member of NLGJA since 1996 and has served as president since 2013. She helped to launch NLGJA’s mentorship program and serves on the board of Unity Journalists of Diversity. She has previously received Peabody and Alfred I. DuPont–Columbia University Awards.
She oversaw the expansion of NLGJA’s Excellence in Journalism Awards program to 30 categories. NLGJA offers awards in a diverse and inclusive assortment of categories including book writing, podcasts, daily and non-daily news and feature writing, multimedia, social media, HIV coverage and local television, among others.
Congratulations also to Tony Varona, a professor of law at American University Washington College of Law who has just been given the title of Vice Dean at the College. Prior to joining the WCL faculty in 2005, he was an associate professor of law at Pace Law School in New York. Before that, he served as general counsel and legal director for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay civil rights organization. He built HRC’s legal department, directed the department’s legislative and regulatory law and appellate amicus work, launched national law fellow and pro bono attorney programs and served as counsel to HRC’s board of directors and the organization’s corporate, educational and media initiatives.
Varona practiced communications law at the Washington offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP, and Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo, PC. He began his legal career as an honors program attorney for the Federal Communications Commission. His scholarship has included articles concerning media and communications law, civil rights, employment discrimination, and hate crimes, and he’s been published in a variety of notable law journals. He serves on the Faculty Review Board of the Administrative Law Review, and as faculty adviser to the Latino/a Law Students Association (LaLSA). He is currently on the board and co-chair of the National Advisory Council to the Stonewall National Museum and Archives.
The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].
The Comings & Goings column also invites LGBTQ college students to share their successes with us. If you have been elected to a student government position, gotten an exciting internship, or are graduating and beginning your career with a great job, let us know so we can share your success.
Congratulations to Yadiel Meléndez, on their new role as Community Associate, with the Wanda Alston Foundation. Meléndez is piloting a new role as a Community Associate at the Wanda Alston Foundation, where they support queer and trans young people in finding their footing, building independence, and experiencing a housing community where they are seen, valued, and affirmed. They are coming into this role with more than a decade of experience as a community organizer and operations specialist, supporting diverse communities through service, advocacy, and program coordination.
Previously they worked for Right Proper Brewing Shaw as a server and bartender and at Sephora, Washington, DC, and at FreshFarm, DC, in bilingual food access. They also worked freelance to build foundational structures for local queer BIPOC performance art coalitions, producing variety shows to curate space for marginalized performance artists in the community. They were a production manager for Haus of Hart Productions, a BIPOC centric performance art production. They also worked as field staff with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in Stafford, Va.
Meléndez is bilingual, Spanish and English. Their work is guided by a commitment to dignity, safety, and trauma-informed engagement, particularly within LGBTQ and BIPOC communities.
Congratulations also to Ben Rosen LICSW, on his new role as program director, with the Wanda Alston Foundation. Rosen previously worked with Fountain House’s OnRamps program, helping to build a new, innovative outreach program for individuals considered chronically homeless, and living with serious mental illness, in the Times Square area of New York. Rosen is a Psychotherapist, having worked with SG Psychotherapy, and as the psychotherapist with the Nest Community Health Center (URAM).
Rosen has a B.F.A. in Theatre Arts: Musical Theatre, Minor in Psychology (Cum Laude) from Malloy University Conservatory; and his M.S.W. in Clinical Practice with Individuals, Families, and Groups, from The Silberman School of Social Work, Hunter College, N.Y. He is independently licensed in New York and Washington, D.C.
Rehoboth Beach
BLUF leather social set for April 10 in Rehoboth
Attendees encouraged to wear appropriate gear
Diego’s in Rehoboth Beach hosts a monthly leather happy hour. April’s edition is scheduled for Friday, April 10, 5-7 p.m. Attendees are encouraged to wear appropriate gear. The event is billed as an official event of BLUF, the free community group for men interested in leather. After happy hour, the attendees are encouraged to reconvene at Local Bootlegging Company for dinner, which allows cigar smoking. There’s no cover charge for either event.
District of Columbia
Celebrations of life planned for Sean Bartel
Two memorial events scheduled in D.C.
Two celebrations of life are planned for Sean Christopher Bartel, 48, who was found deceased on a hiking trail in Argentina on or around March 15. Bartel began his career as a television news reporter and news anchor at stations in Louisville, Ky., and Evansville, Ind., before serving as Senior Video Producer for the D.C.-based International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union from 2013 to 2024.
A memorial gathering is planned for Friday, April 10, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at the IBEW International Office (900 7th St., N.W.), according to a statement by the DC Gay Flag Football League, where Bartel was a longtime member. A celebration of life is planned that same evening, 6-8 p.m. at Trade (1410 14th St., N.W.).
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