When Bryan Ricketts stepped onto campus at the University of Notre Dame in the fall of 2012, he knew that his school did not have a strong history of affirming LGBTQ people – but a burgeoning movement on campus was under way to create an officially recognized organization for LGBTQ students. The Catholic university granted official recognition to PrismND, the first official LGBTQ student organization at the university, in 2013. By his sophomore year, Bryan was serving as co-president of Prism ND – and in his senior year, he served as student body president, a proud openly gay man leading his fellow Notre Dame classmates to success.

Bryan finds strength through his strong Catholic faith, and that is part of what drew him to the University of Notre Dame. “I experienced LGBT acceptance through my faith, and there’s no getting around that for me,” he said. “I’m not going to stop being Catholic because I’m gay – and I don’t believe God doesn’t exist just because I’m gay either.”