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Beyond the Campus: Regional Intercollegiate Organizing
United We Stand! Tired of feeling like your organization is alone in its struggle for queer equality? Have an issue that needs lots of people to tackle it? Regional inter-school coalition building could be the answer. Acting together, schools can more effectively tackle pressing issues from campus-specific to local, state, and even national struggles. The workshop will focus on helping students identify opportunities for regional organizing. The goals are: 1) identifying issues/problems, 2) structuring intercollegiate or inter-high school coalitions, 3) identifying regions to organize. This program will examine case studies, discuss possibilities, and give participants a chance to network with other schools in their region.
Facilitators: Carl T. Wilson, Matthew Rudolphi, Brian Hofmeister, and Angee Meen, members of the Chicago Metro Area Gay Youth Coalition (C-MAGYC), Kevin Friel, a former Outreach Coordinator for Students for Environmental Change (SEA), and Patrick Wojahn, of the National Queer Student Coalition (NQSC).
Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism through Educational Speaks
This session will provide information on organizing, training, presenting and advertising for gay/lesbian/bisexual speakers bureaus. It will discuss the do's and don'ts and conduct a mock speaking engagement.
Facilitators: Javier Gutierrez, Residence Hall Director, Northern Illinois University and Michael Grandys, Co-president, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Coalition, NIU.
Choosing to Label: What's In a Name
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Questioning, Straight. How do we decide which, if any, label to use to describe ourselves? We will discuss the costs and benefits of choosing a particular identity label. This workshop will be highly interactive and is open to all.
The facilitator is Robyn Ochs, a teacher, writer, activist and workshop leader who has taught courses on bisexual identity at MIT and Tufts University. She is a co-founder and active member of the Boston Bisexual Women's Network and the Bisexual Resource Center. She is the editor of the Bisexual Resource Guide and the International Directory of Bisexual Groups and her writings have appeared in several anthologies including Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queeries and Visions; Closer to Home: Bisexuality & Feminism; Homophobia: How we all pay the price; and Bi any other name.
Co-Curricular Programming: Infusing the Classroom with Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Transgendered Images and Voices
Experience Quinebaug Valley Community Technical College's attempt to diversify its curriculum by forging a partnership between faculty, staff, the Student Activities division, the Student Government Association and the local GLBT community. This workshop will showcase a rural community-technical college in Connecticut, including use of the "Love Makes A Family" exhibit to include GLBT history, texts, images and voices in the English, psychology, art, ESL, sociology, human services, medical assisting and humanities curriculum. Participants will benefit from a time-line, a video presentation, student papers and projects, on-line references, and other resources. This will be an interactive workshop which will end with a collaborative brainstorming session aimed at enabling participants to craft and take a plan of action back to their respective campuses.
Julius Sokenu is assistant professor of English at Quinebaug Valley Community-Technical College where he also coordinates their humanities lecture series. In 1996 he received a fellowship from Writers Conferences & Festivals and has also been the recipient of grants from the Connecticut Humanities Council and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. His poetry has appeared in Zone and Nimrod: International Journal of Prose and Poetry and he has poems forthcoming in the anthology Outsiders published by Milkweed Editions.
Doing It For Ourselves
Teen activists working to end homophobia in their own high schools discuss experiences, challenges, struggles, and successes. Topics will include which high schools have lesbigay visibility; working with and without adult support; and the establishment of school-supported gay/straight alliances, lesbigay support groups, and Pride clubs.
Presenters are a group of teen activists affiliated with the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN). They include: Lark Baum, a junior at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and one of the founding members of GAYLA, U-High's gay club; Sydney Cambani, a senior at Lyons Township H.S. and founder of her school's Gay/Straight Alliance; Joe Gaynor IV, a senior and out activist at Evanston Township H.S. and active member of Out and About; Jason Hopkins, a senior at Shaumburg H.S. who's currently working with his principal to establish a Gay/Straight Alliance, and is also a columnist with the school newspaper regarding gay rights issues; Jennie Hurtig, a sophomore and bisexual activist at Maine East H.S. in Park Ridge who is currently working to start the Straight and Gay Alliance and participated in her school's speakout which included lesbian/gay/bi issues; Marcia Van Brunt McMillan (moderator), a senior at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, the president of Spectrum (IMSA's Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Bi Student Alliance); and Nina Schwartz, a senior at Niles West H.S. in Skokie who started her school's lesbian/gay support group, founded Out &About (a teen group taking action against homophobia in high schools), and is also the co-leader of the 1997-98 Youth Leadership Summits.
Designing and Implementing a GLBT Student Group
Metropolitan State University's GLBT student group will present a workshop on starting your own campus group. The Lavender Bridge history will be presented through a slide presentation and a description of MSU student life. A discussion, focusing on creating your own GLBT student group will follow. Issues to be discussed include challenges of organizing, public perceptions, faculty support, funding, meeting student needs, and increasing membership.
Presenters: Barb Price is currently a student at Metropolitan State University (Twin Cities) working on a B.S. in Management. She is the Co-President of Lavender Bridge (GLBT student group) of which she has been a member since 1996. She's also an active member of First Thursday, and the Gay Lesbian Committee Action Council. She has been a project engineer at Northwest Airlines for the past 11 years. Phillip Jares is a 1997 graduate of Metropolitan State University. He received his B.A. in Liberal Arts with a focus on Human Resources. He has been an active member of Lavender Bridge since 1996 and plans to attend MSU in the Fall to obtain his M.A. He is a member of the Samaritan House Advisory Board of Directors and Little Brothers of the Elderly.
Dotheads to Dyke Divas: Conversations on Isolation, Marginalization and the Exotification of South-Asian Lesbian and Bisexual Women
Chicago's South-Asian lesbian and bisexual organization, Khuli Zaban, will facilitate a dialogue on the politics of race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality and how their effects on identity isolate many queer South-
Asian women in America. Members will discuss why it is necessary to create a space for South-Asian Queer Women through an exchange of ideas, frustrations, celebrations and personal stories. Action-oriented discussion will focus on dismantling the exotification and marginalization of lesbian and bisexual women of color.
Facilitators include Priyanka Sinha, Neena Hemmady, and Susan Shah, who are all members of Khuli Zaban.
Education, Diversity and Sexual Orientation: Moving Schools Toward Fuller Inclusion
Discover the reasons, resources and strategies for reaching out to the gay and lesbian members of your K-12 school community. This workshop will provide a conduit for information about support organizations, especially GLSEN, The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and other resources in print, video and on the Internet for navigating change in our K-12 schools.
The facilitators are Betty Lark Ross, founding member of the Chicago Chapter of GLSEN and currently co-chair of GLSEN, Chicago and Saul David Fript, Outreach Co-chair, GLSEN/Chicago.
Faculty and Staff Leadership on the Fruited Plain
Leading and organizing faculty and staff communities is both challenging and exciting. Presenters will discuss leadership development; tips for working with administrators, committees and other faculty/staff organizations; the challenges of fund raising; collaboration between faculty and staff; and transgender inclusion.
Facilitators: John Huebler, Val Myers, and Grant Littke are members of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Faculty and Staff Association at Michigan State University. All three currently serve on the GLFSA board.
Grass Roots Organizing Workshop
This fun, dynamic workshop will inspire students to reinvent the idea of student organizing on their campuses. This program will energize and excite both students who are new to student activism and organizing, as well as older more experienced students. This is THE workshop for you!
Facilitator: Cory Murphy is a history major at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He was a member of the NLGBSC National Board of Directors and NLGBSC Midwestern Representative. Cory is a member of SafeZone, College Democrats, Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity and is president of Delta Lambda Phi Fraternity at UIUC.
HIV Prevention Vaccines: Should Young Gay Men of Color Join the Trials?
Research on young gay men of color is being conducted with experimental HIV vaccines in 12 American cities. This workshop will discuss the potential importance of HIV vaccines to people of color as the biomedical intervention that could end the HIV epidemic. Participants will be equipped with skills to make decisions about research participation.
Facilitator: Steve Wakefield of AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC), Venus Magazine. Wakefield is also Associate Director of The Night Ministry, and serves on the board of the Chicago Department of Health. Wakefield is a member of the AIDS Research Advisor Committee, National Institutes of Health.
How Can I Ask If You Practice Safe Sex If I Can't Even Say Hi?: Assertiveness Exploration and Training
The goal of this program is to help attendees enhance their ability to be assertive across a variety of encounters. The program will be experiential in nature, though a brief discussion about assertiveness will also be presented.
Facilitators: Joy Whitman is a full-time professor of counselor education at Purdue University-Calumet and had previously been an adjunct professor at various institutions. She has conducted research and presentations on the topics of identity management of lesbian women, and on heterosexism and sexism for counselors and educators. Cyndy Boyd has a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from SUNY-Buffalo. She is currently a staff psychologist at the Counseling Center at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Areas of specialty include sexual orientation issues, feminist therapy, eating disorders, sexual abuse, and crisis intervention. Michael Davey is an undergraduate at Purdue University-Calumet.
Implementation of Human Rights Ordinances in Illinois
This panel discussion will use a question-and-answer format to explain how ordinances are passed, what rights they guarantee, how they are enforced, and how they have been used (or not used) to promote civil rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons. People who have been instrumental in obtaining or applying Human Rights Ordinances in Illinois will be highlighted.
Mary Morten, the Mayor of Chicago's liaison to the gay and lesbian community, and William Greaves will head this panel of members of the Access Committee of the City of Chicago Commission on Human Relations Advisory Council on Gay and Lesbian Issues.
Inside the Athletic Closet
What is it like to be the gay quarterback, the transgendered lacrosse goalie, the lesbian basketball coach, the bisexual trainer? How do student-athletes and coaches exist in the heterosexist world of intercollegiate athletics? This program will examine these questions and help participants develop strategies for assisting LGBT student-athletes and coaches.
Facilitator: Sue Rankin is Senior Diversity Planning Analyst in the Office of the Vice Provost for Educational Equity at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Rankin earned her Ph.D. in higher education focusing on climate issues in higher education institutions for gay, lesbian, and bisexual persons. She has conducted several investigations including Enhancing Diversity: Toward a Better Campus Climate (1992) as part of a Penn State University Task Force.
Internet Activism
We'll talk about networking and organizing on the Net, including: forming networks, tracking state and federal legislation online, and getting your message out.
Facilitator: David Mariner is a legislative associate with Advocates for Youth. Advocates for Youth works to increase the opportunities for youth to make healthy decisions about sexuality. David works on a number of public policy issues. He represents Advocates for Youth on NORA (National Organizations Responding to AIDS) and works on GLBT youth issues.
Legal Fruit Loops: Legal Rights for LGBT Student Groups
The focus of this workshop is legal questions concerning LGBT student groups. Presenters will explore the legal rights related to funding, resource centers, social activities and protests. Presenters will also examine the university's role with regard to hate crimes, ROTC, domestic partner benefits and "married" student housing. Bring your questions about student legal rights!
Facilitators: Charlene Smith, Professor of Law, Washburn University Law School, Topeka, KS has been the Faculty Sponsor of the student GLBT group since its inception in 1985. Amy Hyten is a third-year law student and student GLBT activist.
Making Visible: Queer Celebrity Bodies in Film and Television
The panelists examine how queer celebrity bodies become recognized as such, and the implications of such recognition for the formation of star systems and celebrity personalities. The focus is on the public's reading of queerness onto star bodies as sites in which media images circulate as tokens of identifying sexuality.
Presenters: Ronald Gregg is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Film at Northwestern University. Yasmin Nair and Gabriel Wettach are doctoral candidate in the Department of English at Purdue University.
Multiplicity of the Harvest: Diversity in the Community
This workshop explores the contested terrain of diversity in the harvest. Through a participatory lecture/workshop, identity and inclusionary politics of people of color in the gay and lesbian community will be examined. The workshop will enlighten others (non-marginalized groups) about major concerns and intercultural influences of identity/sexuality in marginalized cultures.
Facilitator: Myron Beasley is currently a Ph.D. student at Ohio University, School of Interpersonal Communication. Myron's research topic is an ethnographic examination of the Adodi - a group of gay men of African descent.
Out in the Open: Meeting the Needs of LGBT Residents In University Housing
In 1997 the Division of Housing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison created two new student staff positions: the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered Housing Liaisons, to better meet the needs of LGBT residents while addressing homophobia and heterosexism in the Residence Halls. The presenters will share what they have accomplished this year and discuss how others could create similar programs on other campuses.
Presenters Mathew Rude and Erica Baumer are the two LGBT Liaisons for the Division of Housing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Mathew is double majoring in chemical engineering and biochemistry. Erica is double majoring in journalism and anthropology.
Queer Parenting in a Straight World
A 1996 study conducted by Loyola University professor Isaiah Crawford and graduate student Elizabeth Soliday indicates that non-gays continue to believe that lesbians, bisexuals and gays are poor parents. However, estimates indicate that there are more than 14 million members of lesbian and gay families in the United States. Eight to twelve million children are being raised by lesbigay families. The workshop topics will include issues involved in having and rearing children: reproductive technologies, adoption, co-parenting with non-gays, interactions with schools and health care providers, and "coming out" as a child in a lesbigay family.
Facilitator: Colette Morrow, Director of Women's Studies at Purdue University-Calumet and founding member of Rainbow Families, a network of lesbigay families with children serving the Chicagoland area. Other people presenting are members of Rainbow Families and a lawyer who works with this group.
Researching the Sexual
This interactive workshop will demonstrate the processes involved in conducting the largest gay and lesbian health survey in the United Kingdom. The workshop will review the process from theoretical construction to presenting the results of the survey.
Facilitator: Art Ramirez is a Senior Lecturer in Mental and Sexual Health Research at Thames Valley University in London, England. He runs the only university-recognized HIV/AIDS buddy training program in the world. Originally from Texas, he has lived in England for 20 years and, through volunteering at Windsor Castle, has come into contact with members of the Royal family including the late Princess Diana.
To Queer a Small Campus: Reflections from a Seasoned Advisor
This discussion workshop will focus on the challenges that small private colleges are facing regarding the issues of queering their campuses. Whether the campus has a tradition of support and advocacy or is just beginning the process of acceptance, this workshop is designed to provide practical tools for advisors to help queer a small campus.
Facilitator: Dave Clark is the Dean of Students at Pitzer College and advisor to the Queer Resource Center. He has also served as advisor to the Coe College Alliance and the Grinnell College Resource Center. Dave is very active in presenting workshops, teaching courses on queer theory, and is a published author.
Transgender Issues
This session will focus on the legal and social issues facing the transgender community and the steps It's Time, Illinois is taking to address them. It will also deal with the similarities between the transgender and GLB communities and how they can work together to achieve their goals.
Presenters Stephanie Young and Janice Galeckas are on the board of It's Time, Illinois, a political action group for the transgendered community. Stephanie is also on the board of the Illinois Federation for Human Rights. Both are post-op transsexuals who were able to transition on the job.
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