McHarry, a social worker, was one of several dozen alums and friends who gathered in the Red Room of St. Paul's Chapel to do what most agreed we should do more often: schmooze.
As first-year Columbia College students Darren Cohen and Carolyn Lovejoy tended the bar, they marveled at the friendliness and camaraderie they had experienced throughout the week, beginning with their stint in the kissing booth during the Queer Carnival on Low Plaza.
"I've never seen this many queer people in one place in my life," said Lovejoy, who grew up in New Hampshire.
If they were thrilled, the alums were even more so. Take John Burke, Jr., for example. Burke, who is now semi-retired after a career devoted mostly to immigration and refugee work, graduated from Columbia College in 1955.
"There was no visibility," he recalled. "Whatever community there was in existence at that time was completely underground." The campus did come to life for lesbigays during the summer, however, when inquiring minds from all over the country -- many of them gay -- came to Columbia for classes.
"You built up a coterie of close friends who were closer to you in certain ways than many people are today because they don't have to be close," he said. "You were close because you needed them, they needed you. There was an interdependence that gave you strength."
When McHarry was a student at Barnard, she lacked strength and self-confidence. "I knew there were other gay and lesbian people on campus, but I was scared to really approach them," she said. "It took me a process of self-discovery and getting really stronger before I could really come out and be comfortable."
It was because Requel Lopes, BC '92, felt comfortable in the Barnard environment of the '80s that she came out during the second semester of her first year, '85-'86. She now laughingly says that she and cohort Margarita Suarez, CC '89, were the "queers of color" of their day. "People would say, 'Oh, you're exotic." I'd say, 'No, I'm Requel. That's all you need to know.'"
Three or four years ago, Ed Falterman didn't know exactly which way he was going, but the Ed.D. candidate at Teachers College was thrust into declaring himself as a result of a homophobic episode on campus. It all started, interestingly enough, with an exhibition on homophobic literature arranged on a TC bulletin board by lesbigay students. Because other students complained, the administration took the display down. Falterman was already involved in student government and took a leading role in convincing the administration to restore the exhibition.
"At the time I was coming to deal with my own sexuality, my own orientation, the coming out process," he said.
Now Falterman is co-chair of Lesbians, Bisexuals and Gays at Teachers College (LBGTC), which has about 40 active members.
As alums socialized with old friends and made new ones among current lesbigay students, faculty and staff, they were asked to leave a few words of wisdom.
Burke's? "Be yourself, and don't take no for an answer. Keep fighting. Keep working. And always smile. It helps no matter what you do."
Adam Rosenberg, CC '91, no doubt still remembering those readings in Contemporary Civilization, offered a more classic response.
"When in Rome, do the Romans."
- E. R. Shipp, School of Journalism