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Association for the Study of Higher Education Outstanding Book Award Winner, 2020This book outlines the beginning of student organizing around issues of sexual orientation at Midwestern universities from 1969 to the early 1990s. Collegiate organizations were vitally important to establishing a public presence as well as a social consciousness in the last quarter of the twentieth century. During this time, lesbian and gay students struggled for recognition on campuses while forging a community that vacillated between fitting into campus life and deconstructing the sexist and heterosexist constructs upon which campus life rested. The first openly gay and lesbian student body presidents in the United States were elected during this time period, at Midwestern universities; at the same time, pioneering non-heterosexual students faced criticism, condemnation, and violence on campus. Drawing upon interviews, extensive reviews of campus newspapers and yearbooks, andarchival research across the Midwest, Patrick Dilley demonstrates how the early gay campus groups created and provided educational and support services on campus-efforts that later became incorporated into campus services across the nation. Further, the book shows the transformation of gay identity into a minority identity on campus, including the effect of alliances with campus racial minorities.
List of contents
1. An Introduction to Early Gay and Lesbian Campus Organizing.- 2. Student Groups' Formulation of Gay Liberation Identity in the 1970s - Part 1.- 3. Student Groups' Formulation of Gay Liberation Identity in the 1970s - Part II.- 4. Gay and Lesbian Student Groups Struggle to Serve Campus in the 1980s.- 5. Student Groups Assimilate Despite Campus Resistance in the Early 1990s.- 6. How non-heterosexual Student Groups Utilized Liberation to Achieve Campus Assimilation.
About the author
Patrick Dilley is Professor of Higher Education and Qualitative Research, and Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA.
Summary
Association for the Study of Higher Education Outstanding Book Award Winner, 2020This book outlines the beginning of student organizing around issues of sexual orientation at Midwestern universities from 1969 to the early 1990s. Collegiate organizations were vitally important to establishing a public presence as well as a social consciousness in the last quarter of the twentieth century. During this time, lesbian and gay students struggled for recognition on campuses while forging a community that vacillated between fitting into campus life and deconstructing the sexist and heterosexist constructs upon which campus life rested. The first openly gay and lesbian student body presidents in the United States were elected during this time period, at Midwestern universities; at the same time, pioneering non-heterosexual students faced criticism, condemnation, and violence on campus. Drawing upon interviews, extensive reviews of campus newspapers and yearbooks, andarchival research across the Midwest, Patrick Dilley demonstrates how the early gay campus groups created and provided educational and support services on campus–efforts that later became incorporated into campus services across the nation. Further, the book shows the transformation of gay identity into a minority identity on campus, including the effect of alliances with campus racial minorities.
Additional text
“Dilley has made a major contribution to both the history of higher education and our understanding of the experiences of LGBTQ students, making Gay Liberation to Campus Assimilation an important work for researchers and practitioners alike.” (Michael S. Hevel and Charles J. Thompson, Journal of College Student Development, Vol. 61 (2), 2020)
“This is not only the first book published on the history of queer student organizations in higher education, it also focuses on a geographical region generally overlooked in queer history. … Dilley has done the hard work of laying out historical markers to delineate significant events in the history of queer student organizing. As a result, the visibility of non-heterosexual college students from past decades is more secure.” (Karen Graves, History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 59 (3), 2019)
Report
"Dilley has made a major contribution to both the history of higher education and our understanding of the experiences of LGBTQ students, making Gay Liberation to Campus Assimilation an important work for researchers and practitioners alike." (Michael S. Hevel and Charles J. Thompson, Journal of College Student Development, Vol. 61 (2), 2020)
"This is not only the first book published on the history of queer student organizations in higher education, it also focuses on a geographical region generally overlooked in queer history. ... Dilley has done the hard work of laying out historical markers to delineate significant events in the history of queer student organizing. As a result, the visibility of non-heterosexual college students from past decades is more secure." (Karen Graves, History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 59 (3), 2019)
