COMMUNITY NEWS Volume 1, Number 3 November 1993
A Newsletter for the lesbian, bisexual, and gay community
and supporters at Columbia University and Affiliates
NOVEMBER EVENTS CALENDAR & CONTACTS
2 (Tuesday) LBGC Peer Discussion. 8 pm: Lounge [F-6], Furnald
Basement.
3 (Wednesday) Bi Weekly: A discussion group for bisexuals. Call
Toni Eng at 853-5022 for more information. 8 pm, 303 Earl Hall.
4 (Thursday) CU Seminar on Homosexualities: Anomaly and Taboo
(Presenter: Warren Johansson). 7:30 pm, SIPA (Room 1512).
* Graduate Schools Group. 8 pm, call John Higgins at 854-3794
for location.
* LBGC Cabaret with Annie di Franco. 8 pm, Lower Level McIntosh
(Barnard).
* LBGTC Meeting. 9 pm, 177 Grace Dodge Hall (Teachers College).
5 (Friday) Lesbian/Gay Studies Group: "Enforcing Queer Bodies, a
Colloquium." 4 pm, 754 Schermerhorn Extension.
* LBGC First Friday Dance. 10 pm, Earl Hall.
7 (Sunday) LBGC Meeting. 7 pm, 303 Earl Hall.
8 (Monday) Coordinators' Meeting. 8 pm, Law 6W1.
9 (Tuesday) Outreach's Coming-Out Support Group. 3-4:30 pm, 400
John Jay.
11 (Thursday) Community Meeting. 5:30 pm, Earl Hall Auditorium.
14 (Sunday) LBGC Meeting. 7 pm, 303 Earl Hall.
16 (Tuesday) Outreach's Coming-Out Support Group. 3-4:30 pm, 400
John Jay.
* LBGC Peer Discussion. 8 pm, Lounge [F-6], Furnald Basement.
17 (Wednesday) Bi Weekly: A discussion group for bisexuals. Call
Toni Eng at 853-5022 for more information. 8 pm, 303 Earl Hall.
18 (Thursday) GABLES-CU Meeting. 5:30-7 pm, Location to be announced.
* Graduate Schools Group. 8 pm, call John Higgins at 854-3794
for location.
* LBGC Movie Night. 8 pm, Lounge [F-6], Furnald Basement.
* LBGTC Meeting. 9 pm, 177 Grace Dodge Hall (Teachers College).
19 (Friday) Lesbian/Gay Studies Group: "Digital Queers, a
Colloquium." 4 pm, 754 Schermerhorn Extension.
21 (Sunday) LBGC Meeting. 7 pm, 303 Earl Hall.
23 (Tuesday) Outreach's Coming-Out Support Group. 3-4:30 pm, 400
John Jay.
30 (Tuesday) Outreach's Coming-Out Support Group. 3-4:30 pm, 400
John Jay.
* LBGC Peer Discussion. 8 pm, Lounge [F-6], Furnald Basement.
________________________________________________________________
| LBGC--Columbia/Barnard Lesbian Bisexual Gay Coalition |
| GABLES-CU--Gay, Bisexual, & Lesbian Employees & Supporters |
| LBGTC--Lesbians, Bisexuals, & Gays at Teachers College |
|______________________________________________________________|
CONTACTS
COMMUNITY NEWS
To list events: John Rash, 678-3779 (jprash@cutcv2)
To suggest features: E. R. Shipp, 854-7571 (ers9@columbia.edu)
To be on the mailing list: Steve van Leeuwen, 854-3078
(svl2@columbia.edu)
GABLES CONVENORS
Annie Barry, 854-3219 (abl4@columbia.edu)
Stephen Davis, 854-8584 (daviss@columbia.edu)
Jim Hoover, 854-2635 (hoover@columbia.edu)
RESOURCES
OutReach hotline--lesbigay support/information: 854-3091
LBGC Infoline: 854-1488
Lesbigay notesfile: log in to CUNIX and type "notes lesbigay"--
Assistance: AcIS Help Line: 854-4854.
"Community News" is available in its entirety on ColumbiaNet.
REFLECT ON THE WEEK THAT WAS--AND BE GLAD!
It was a time to reflect and to celebrate ourselves, while
considering our place at Columbia and in the world at large. We
were deliciously frivolous at the Queer Carnival as we pinned a
tail on what Rob Cordell of the Gay and Lesbian Law Students
Association called "dead gay icons: Marilyn Monroe or James Dean."
We were deadly sober as we reflected on the message of Laura
Pinsky of Gay Health Advocacy Project: "There is lots of AIDS on
campus." We disagreed over whether "queer" is a useful term and
whether lesbigays should strive for acceptance within organized
religion. But everyone loved Ken Harlin's lemon cake at the
brunch! What follows are some of the voices heard during BGLAD,
our Bisexual, Gay & Lesbian Awareness Days, held at Columbia last
month.
JONATHAN R. COLE, UNIVERSITY PROVOST:
"It is important for me to acknowledge, applaud and celebrate the
extraordinary importance of your efforts to foster a higher level
of understanding and civility on the Columbia campus. The members
of the gay, bisexual, and lesbian community at this University are
tremendously important contributors to everything that the
Columbia community is, and you must have the full civil rights on
this campus and in the larger society that you deserve--and which
are often denied to you. The simple fact seems to be that there
are more abridgements of your rights than there is for virtually
any other identifiable group at Columbia, and this is simply not
acceptable. This has to be changed through what we do best, which
is educating each other....
"We achieved some good things with changes in health benefits, but
that will not be the resting place for us. There are other matters
of great importance to the gay, lesbian, and bisexual members of
our community that must be addressed, and I want you to know that
I stand willing to help us move forward together to improve those
situations at Columbia and thereby to improve everybody's
situation at Columbia. You can count on me for that support."
MARSHA WAGNER, UNIVERSITY OMBUDS OFFICER:
In her role, Wagner often comes across "instances of heterosexism,
homophobia, hostility or insensitivity, or lack of respect being
expressed to people because of their sexual orientation":
* An openly gay man walking through a corridor and seeing
graffiti on a wall saying: "Fag Die."
* A lesbian student finding a Women Oriented Women poster on
her dormitory room door ripped to shreds.
* An employee who is out to co-workers noticing that they don't
want to use pencils he has touched for fear of getting AIDS.
* A lesbian administrator finding a large sign saying "DYKE"
anonymously placed on her office door.
* Lecturers in Columbia classrooms stating that homosexuality
is "abnormal, wrong, unnatural or perverse."
* And, during BGLAD, this message being left on the LBGC
Hotline: "Die, you fucking scumbags. Get AIDS and die, every
fucking one of you fucking pieces of shit. Get AIDS and
dieeeeeeeee!"
MARIO DI GANGI, PH. D. CANDIDATE IN ENGLISH & COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
"There's no single accepted view within the queer community how
best to do queer studies for the simple reason that the queer
community or the lesbian and gay community isn't some ... unitary
community. Recently important differences within this 'community'
have manifested themselves over the appropriation of the word
'queer.'... Some people find this term theoretically and
emotionally compelling, whereas for others it too painfully
recalls the stigma of growing up in homophobic American society.
So even the choice to identify oneself or one's practices as
'queer' as opposed to 'gay,' is fraught with weighty political and
personal considerations."
REVEREND ZACHARY JONES, FOUNDER OF THE UNITY FELLOWSHIP:
"The African American community sort of resents when the white
lesbian and gay community seems to identify with the similarities
of the civil rights movement.... The African American community
gets very offended, both the so-called straight and the
unstraight. I think we have to be very careful when we talk about
or when we are comparing those two groups.... I resent it as an
African American gay man when I hear a white gay man say [the gay
rights movement] is like the civil rights movement, when our
experiences are very different.... 'Queer'--African American
people, many of them, hate that word, just absolutely hate it. It
doesn't describe our expression of lesbian and gay community."
A woman in the audience for "What Lesbigays Need & Want From Their
Straight Friends and Colleagues:
"I'm sitting here tonight and remembering all my friends who are
gone. I'm just glad that this is happening. I hope it continues. I
hope this isn't something that Columbia says 'Here's an issue now
and we have to address it' and then all of a sudden a year later
we're not even talking about it. I hope there are more forums. I
just hope it goes on because it's too many people that I love that
have gone, and they did not die in vain. They had a right to love,
and they had a right to care...."
ANN ROBINSON, a non-Columbian came to the Queer Carnival with her
husband and two children, ages 7 and 9. As one son tossed darts at
offensive words one hopes he is too young to understand but which
felt good to see him "destroy" (the object of the game at the LBGC
booth!), she explained why she had brought the children:
"There's such an atmosphere of homophobia around here, and I think
that children shouldn't be prejudiced on any level."
BGLAD gatherings drew alums from all over the metropolitan area--
and even Rhode Island! More often than not, they compared Columbia
of the past with what they see now. DAVID SCHACHER, a lawyer (CC
'82), was typical:
"It was much more cloistered and there certainly weren't as many
organizations, and people weren't this open about it."
STEPHEN DONALDSON (CC '70), FOUNDER OF THE STUDENT HOMOPHILE LEAGUE,
A FORERUNNER OF LBGC:
"When I was a freshman, I didn't know any other gay people at
Columbia, period. Now I think it's impossible for someone to grow
up like that."
PETER AWN, FORMER CATHOLIC PRIEST AND CURRENT PROFESSOR OF ISLAMIC
STUDIES:
"I would hope that as gays and lesbians deal very seriously with
dilemmas raised by the institutional side of religion, one doesn't
see oneself cut off from the extraordinary richness that one can
find within religious experience, that that experience need not be
seen as completely tied to institutions and that in the same way
that we claim ourselves as gay men and lesbians, one can claim as
well the extraordinary experience that has been shared by men and
women who do see value in religious experience. To me that's a
distinction that we often don't make loudly and clearly enough:
that experience is there for the taking--there's nobody who can
tell you you can't do X or Y--but that when we get to the level of
institutional discussion, and sometimes conflict, those are
sometimes more serious political questions than religious
questions."
JANET PARKER, PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER:
"We can liberate the spirit and gospel of Jesus from homophobia
and reclaim its power for our lives.... We can be both lesbian,
gay, or bisexual and Christian or members of any religious
tradition for that matter."
DAVID WELLMAN, GRADUATE STUDENT AT UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY:
"[M]y prayer for everyone of every faith is that we begin today to
read our scriptures for ourselves. The fundamentalists of all
faiths are counting on us to be ignorant of our history and
illiterate in our faith. Knowledge is power and therefore it can
no longer be left in the hands of so few. Secondly, I think that
the time has come for all progressives people of faiths to come
out--as Christians, as Jews, as Muslims, as Buddhists--and be a
living witness of the fact that God is far greater than the
fundamentalists tell you and that God's love is for all people."
J. B. SACKS, A RABBI IN A JERSEY CITY, N.J., SYNAGOGUE:
"We can never be a world of just gays and lesbians just as it
never was really just a world of heterosexuals. There needs to be
a world where all of us can really live and honor each other and
support each other and nurture each other."
JOHN HIGGINS, PH. D. STUDENT IN ECONOMICS: [entire speech reprinted
on ColumbiaNet]
"I think I know who I am. I think I know what you're going
through. I think I know what you need me to do to make the
transition easier. I don't know if I can do it: I am a hollow man.
But sometimes hollow men are resonant.
"I have been out, in the sense of identifying myself to others as
a homosexual, for only ten months.... I can only strongly
empathize with those possessing both hetero and homosexual
impulses. The course of my life has been turbulent enough without
the further complications incumbent on those for whom orientation
itself is less an absolute. I was early pegged as 'sensitive,' and
in my case, the corresponding sexual orientation society imputes
was dead on....
"How do you survive? For me the answer was to go 'in' big time,
and as far as stemming the harassment and the roughings up, it
worked remarkably well. Indeed, one of the kids later came up to
me and said, 'John, you're okay now, but back in seventh grade we
all thought you were gay.
"What is being in the closet? For me it was not just concealing my
sexuality, but all the finer emotions that are inextricably tied
in with it. You do get a reprieve from society, but you're
neurotic about being detected. You discipline yourself. You rip
out everything that could be used as evidence against you. You
trade off society doing to you for you doing it to yourself....
"So what happened? Nothing romantic. For me, I just got tired of
being alone, the prospect of never being able to ever fully open
up to someone, the sentence of the closet....
"Today is about 'coming out.' Although this does not guarantee
happiness, it is a step that all non-heterosexuals in this society
must take before they can possibly achieve true happiness.... But,
sadly, I talk of 'coming out,' not 'coming home.' While key
individuals at Columbia offer support and outreach to people
coming out into an implicitly hostile society, it fails to
function--both for ourselves and for those in transition--as part
of a community.... Am I satisfied with being part of a 'community'
by dint of commonality of certain personal experiences, or
commonality of social or political objectives rather than part of
a community of direct, interpersonal contact, direct concern for
each other's happiness, celebration of each other as distinct
reflections of life?
"Would it not be better to work this year so that at this time
next year I can call our not 'come out' but 'come home'? So that
at this time next year I can reach out not only to those of us
having trouble making the transition, but to those of us who have
already come out, yet who remain lonely and lost in a harsh
environment, looking for the respite of accepting friends?
"Yet I am a hollow man, and the gutting of the closet yet leaves
an emotional vacuum. And, realizing this, instead I ask: At this
time next year will I come out?"
- E. R. Shipp
PARTNER HEALTH BENEFITS ARE HERE! (FOR SOME)
The domestic partners of full-time faculty, administrative
officers and non-union support staff can now be covered by the
employee health benefits offered by Columbia University. The plan
becomes effective January 1, 1994, but those interested may apply
now.
"We feel this is an important change because it fills a real gap
in coverage that should be available to all," Provost Jonathan R.
Cole said in outlining the Columbia plan.
At Columbia this development is being hailed by lesbigay community
leaders such as Jim Hoover, the Law School librarian, as "an
important first step," and Dr. Cole is being singled out for his
leadership in winning University approval of the policy change.
But, excitement is tempered by the fact that only health benefits
are involved and only some University employees are eligible.
"I think it's a spectacular thing," said Frank Wolf, the associate
of the School of General Studies. "I think Jonathan Cole in
particular deserves credit for having negotiated the achievement
of this at a time when budgetary concerns in the University made
this an especially hard thing to pull off. Even though in the long
run the incremental costs are very small, they are still
incremental costs."
"It's fabulous," said Annie Barry, the Religion Department's
administrator. "It could be much better, but it's a start. Life
insurance is still not part of the package, but it is nice to know
you'll be able to offer some sort of safety net for a partner."
Under the Columbia plan, domestic partners of the same gender will
be entitled to the same medical coverage offered to married
couples and dependents. Columbia defines a domestic partnership as
"two individuals of the same gender who live with an exclusive
mutual commitment similar to that of marriage, in which the
partners have agreed to be responsible for each other's welfare
and share financial obligations." What the University contributes
to the medical coverage will be considered taxable income to the
employee.
Typical of those who anticipate applying is Dwight Childers, a
manager in Administrative Information Systems. "My lover Ben is
self-employed as an accountant," he said. "Over our six years
together our worries about his health-insurance coverage have
mounted along with the costs of premiums. Knowing that we'll be
able to cover him under the University health benefit is a great
relief."
Not covered so far are the unionized employees at Columbia.
According to Tom Darold, the University's director of benefits and
compensation, and others familiar with the process, the 14 unions
recognized at Columbia must request this benefit during upcoming
negotiations.
Said one angry union worker who asked not to be identified:
"Basically with this policy the University has now replaced
heterosexism with classism. To me it feels like the people who
already have the highest salaries are getting another benefit."
A number of people who are eligible said they would cooperate with
ineligible workers to assure that they, too, are eventually
covered. "We want to help them get it," Barry said. "We're just
starting to think of ways in which we can contribute to that
process."
To apply for domestic-partner status, an eligible employee must be
of legal marriageable age and must have been sharing a household
on a continuing basis for six prior months. To show common
financial obligations, the couple must meet any two of five
conditions: (1) hold a joint mortgage or lease, (2) designate a
partner as beneficiary for life insurance or retirement benefits,
(3) designate a partner as primary beneficiary in the Columbia
employee's will, (4) assign durable power of attorney or health
care power of attorney to the partner, and (5) jointly own a bank
account, credit account, or motor vehicle. The criteria for
qualification of dependent children of a partner are the same as
those for the child or stepchild of the married spouse of an
employee.
For more information, Columbia employees should speak with a
benefits counselor at 854-7451.
NEWS BITS
QUEER DOCUMENTARY PLANNED
LBGC has established a Film Committee, which is producing a
documentary on being gay, lesbian, and bisexual at Columbia.
According to Tina Alexander, "the [thirty-minute] video will be
geared towards a university audience, in particular, it can be
used for orientation, residence life, prospective students, and a
general resource for all members of the Columbia-Barnard
community." The Film Committee filmed events during BGLAD week,
and plan to shoot some of LBGC's dormitory floor raps.
COLUMBIA HIV SUPPORT GROUP
Weekly meetings facilitated by Laura Pinsky. Open to students,
staff, and faculty from any campus. Free and confidential. For
details, call Laura Pinsky at 854-2878.
STONEWALL 25
1994 marks the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. An
international commemoration of this event will take place on
Sunday, 26 June 1994, in place of the traditional Lesbian/Gay
Pride Parade sponsored by the Heritage of Pride. The format chosen
is a march on the United Nations to affirm the rights of lesbian
and gay people, followed by a massive rally in Central Park. More
than one million people are expected. The local host committee
accordingly seeks interested volunteers, and will have a
"community forum" at the Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center,
208 West 13th Street, from 7-9 pm on Thursday, November 4, 1993.
CALL FOR PAPERS: "SEIZING THE MOMENT"
The Fourth National Graduate Student Conference on Lesbian,
Transgender, Bisexual, & Gay Studies invites abstracts outlining
possible contributions to this interdisciplinary, multi-media,
social/political/academic event to be held March 3-5, 1994, at the
University of Texas at Austin. Deadline: November 15, 1993. Send
to: English Department, Parlin 108; The University of Texas at
Austin; Austin, TX 78712-1164.
A SPACE OF OUR OWN
It's not a big room, and it's not a nice room. But, sadly, 303
Earl Hall is just about all the queer community has at Columbia
University, give or take a bulletin board here and a mail box
there. Not too impressive for a community that spans the length
and breadth of this entire institution. We are students, faculty,
staff, administrators, and alumni/ae.
We deserve a space of our own.
Some may wonder why we need our own center. As much as the LBGC is
trying to make our office a place for everyone, there are just too
many groups and too many constraints on a mediocre space that also
needs to be shared with other groups affiliated with Earl Hall. We
need a facility where at least two meetings can simultaneously
take place, whether it's JAGL, GABLES, GALLSA, QUIPS, LBGTC or
Outreach. We need a space where we can have office hours. In
short: a queer community center would go a long way toward
unifying our community, literally and symbolically. This is the
next step in making this campus a welcoming and embracing home for
lesbigays.
- Conor Kennedy Ryan
PERSUADING COLUMBIA TO EXTEND BENEFITS TO GAY AND LESBIAN COUPLES
At most institutions considering benefits for the partners of gay
and lesbian employees, the hurdle of cost is the main one to
overcome, even where clear non-discrimination policies exist.
Columbia was no exception. It took a fair amount of work to get
discussion focused first on institutional values and then on
costs.
At Columbia the process began in earnest a little more than a year
ago, when Michael Susi initiated discussions with a lawyer from
the Lambda Legal Defense Fund and then with Rosalind Fink,
Columbia's Affirmative Action Officer. In the summer of 1992 I
joined the effort when I was named to the University's Civility
Committee. Soon, we launched a survey of all campus offices that
provide benefits to faculty, staff, and students to determine
whether each benefit was offered to the partners of lesbian and
gay couples on the same bases as to spouses.
Surprisingly, we found that the Libraries and the Gym already
granted partner benefits, although this had never been publicized.
We also learned that some policies differed between the
Morningside and Health Sciences campuses. For example, graduate
students at the main campus were eligible for married student
housing if they had a partner, while that was not the case uptown.
Around this time the University's Benefits Committee was readying
its recommendations, and--surprise!--domestic-partner benefits
were not on the agenda. But timing was on our side: Stanford
University, which was also reviewing its employee benefits, had
developed a 60-page report that included a justification for
extending benefits to domestic partners. Once the Stanford report
began circulating among senior-level officials at Columbia,
Provost Jonathan R. Cole quickly determined that Columbia should
move forward. He worked with the Benefits Committee to prepare a
presentation to the Trustees that included among the general
changes in employee benefits an extension of health coverage to
the partners and families of lesbian and gay employees.
On June 5, 1993, the Trustees approved the proposal.
Although this is just one benefit, and the eligibility criteria
may not be totally equivalent to those expected of married
employees, health coverage is often considered the most important
benefit because it is vital to all families and is perhaps the
most costly benefit provided by employers. There is yet a good
deal of work to be done to achieve full parity with heterosexual
employees, but this is an important first step--one achieved very
quickly when measured against Columbia's usual "geologic" sense of
time.
- Jim Hoover
CALLING ALL JOCKS AND WANNABE'S:
IT'S TIME TO SIGN UP FOR GAY GAMES IV
Accents from the Bronx to Boise to Bangkok will echo across the
city next summer as 15,000 lesbian, gay, and bisexual athletes--
and perhaps as many as 50,000 of their admirers--converge upon New
York City for Gay Games IV and the Unity '94 Cultural Festival.
Individuals who want to participate in the games, which will
feature everything from aerobics to in-line skating
("rollerblading") to the always-popular physique competition, must
register by December 31.
Organizers expect teams from about 60 American cities and 40
foreign countries. Thirty athletic events will be held, at venues
all over the metropolitan area--from the Pelham Bay and Split Rock
golf course in the Bronx to Hudson Lane Bowling in Jersey City.
Columbia's Wien Stadium at Baker Field is in the running for track
and field (no pun intended).
"It's both exciting and terrifying," said Games executive director
Jay Hill, a former advertising executive for Newsweek magazine.
"We're hearing that teams like Toronto, which had 100 athletes at
the last Games, are sending 300 to New York."
Gay Games IV will be a highlight of Stonewall 25, an international
commemoration of the birth of the modern movement for gay and
lesbian rights. "In 1993, we marched on Washington," the fliers
being distributed by organizers of Stonewall 25, say. "In 1994, WE
MARCH ON THE WORLD." Next June 26, more than one million people
are expected at the United Nations in an affirmation of the human
rights of lesbigay people and then to take part in a rally in
Central Park. This could become the largest lesbigay gathering in
history!
The Games' host committee, known as "New York in '94," is trying
to raise $5.5 million to put on the 10-day, quadrennial affair,
starting June 16. Martina Navratilova helped raise more than
$250,000 at a Madison Square Garden Fundraiser last July.
New York in '94 is also organizing a Unity '94 Cultural Festival
that will include a series of evening literary salons hosted by
such luminaries as Patricia Nell Warren, Tony Kushner, Dorothy
Allison, and Harvey Fierstein; a dance series at the Joyce
Theater; performances by such artists as Tim Miller, David Drake
and the Pomo Afro Homos; concerts; a comedy festival and
exhibitions.
To register for the games (no, you don't have to be Greg
Louganis!), to make donations, to volunteer or just to receive
more information, contact Gay Games IV at (212) 633-9494; fax:
(212) 633-9488; 19 W. 21st St., Suite 1202, New York, N.Y. 10010.
For additional information about participating, call Team New York
organizers Kerry Holbrook, (718) 768-8820, or Orlando Diaz, (212)
477-3937. For information on Stonewall 25, attend an informational
meeting on November 4 from 7 pm to 9 pm at the Lesbian and Gay
Community Services Center, 208 W. 13th St., or call (212) 439-
1077.
- Bob Nelson
A NATIONAL AIDS MEMORIAL RIGHT IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine has always defied easy
characterization. Built in the twentieth century, the church at
112th and Amsterdam is the largest and most elaborate example of
thirteenth-century Gothic architecture. Ostentatiously constructed
as a bastion of the wealthy Episcopal elites of New York, it now
highlights poetry by prisoners, art by native peoples, ecological
displays, and new-age style crystals.
Even amid such an eclectic scene, however, it is surprising and
uplifting to find the National AIDS Memorial--a moving reminder in
the age of the so-called religious right that Christian faith need
not be synonymous with intolerance and homophobia.
The Memorial itself is a book into which have been inscribed the
names of thousands of people who have died of AIDS-related causes.
Dedicated in 1985, the Book of Remembrance is located in a bay on
the south side of the nave dedicated to St. Luke, the patron of
physicians. The Memorial may be visited between 7 am and 5 pm each
day, and floral tributes or votive candles can be left at the
site. Names may also be submitted for inclusion in the book free
of charge. A special fund has been established to provide direct
grants to groups specializing in AIDS services, education, or
research.
"We hope that in the midst of your loss and grief, with time you
will experience serenity and the joys that come with remembrance,"
is a message in the Memorial's most recent newsletter.
- Ray Smith
TWO NEW LESBIGAY GROUPS LAUNCHED
Wendy Haley, Toni Eng, and John Higgins all saw that something was
missing at Columbia so they did something about it. After
postering the campus for introductory meetings, the two groups
attracted nearly 100 people between them.
"It sort of made sense to get a general graduate student social
group together where we could just meet each other and talk and
associate--an entry level to sort of community building that I
found a need for," said Higgins, a fourth-year graduate student in
economics.
The graduate students' group, which does not have a name but has
attracted about 60 students, will meet on the first and third
Thursdays of each month. Watch for fliers! Or, call John at 854-
3794.
Eng and Haley didn't know what to expect when they put up their
signs, but about 25 men and women showed up for a freewheeling
discussion on being bisexual--everything from whether the term
"bisexual" is adequate to whether monogamy is any more of an issue
for bisexuals than for anyone else. But "the discussion was very
centered around personal experiences," Eng, a Columbia College
junior, said. The next gathering of the discussion group, which
meets at 8 pm every other Wednesday in the Schiff Room at Earl
Hall, is Nov. 3. For more information, call Toni at 853-5022. And,
watch for fliers!
- E. R. Shipp
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