CAMPUS CHRONICLES: Transgender Digital Archive Opens at Holy Cross
The Digital Transgender Archive was launched at the Jesuit-Sponsored College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, last week. Below, Bondings 2.0 highlights this and other developments in Catholic higher education related to LGBT issues as part of our “Campus Chronicles” series.
Transgender Archive at Holy Cross
The College of the Holy Cross launched the Digital Transgender Archive last week, the first of its kind organizers say. The archive will include “a compendium of historic documents, oral-history transcripts, photographs, and newsletters” about transgender people and issues, reported The Boston Globe.
The archive is the idea of English professor K.J. Rawson, who now directs it, after Rawson was challenged finding accessible transgender materials during doctoral research. 21 institutions and organizations will ultimately contribute materials to the archive. It is being well received according to Rawson, meeting needs beyond simple academic research:
” ‘A number of transgender individuals have already reached out with gratitude to find a history they weren’t able to find and read about before. . .To know that they’re not alone in this, and it’s not the first time someone is experiencing what they’re experiencing. That this has been happening for a really long time.’ “
You can visit the Digital Transgender Archive by clicking here.
La Salle Students Back Gender-Neutral Housing
Four-fifths of participating students in a student referendum at La Salle University voted to back a gender-neutral housing proposal by sophomore Nicholas Lario. The proposed policy would apply to the Philadelphia-area University’s townhouses and allow LGBTQ students to access safe and more comfortable housing options.
La Salle’s administration has no position on the issue, though president Colleen Hanycz said it would receive “careful and thoughtful consideration,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Campus Pride reports 200 colleges and universities in the U.S. provide gender-neutral housing, but La Salle University would be a trendsetter in Catholic higher education if the proposal moves forward.
Christendom College Republicans Withdraw Over Gay Rights
College Republicans (CR) at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia, withdrew from state and national affiliations because the College Republican Federation of Virginia added sexual orientation as a protected class within its policies, reported CrossMap. Representatives from the Christendom CR’s said they were concerned they would have to include LGB students in their organization and formed a new group, the Christendom College Political Action League.
Assumption College’s LGBTQ Group Profiled
A recent article in campus newspaper Le Provocateur profiled Assumption College’s LGBTQ group, AC Allies. Guided by Campus Ministry, whose director Paul Covino mentors the group, AC Allies hosts weekly meetings and partners with other campus organizations for education programs at the Worcester, Massachusetts, school. Covino said it is a “great consolation. . .the sentiment expressed by the students in the group that they feel accepted on our campus.”
This post is part of our “Campus Chronicles” series on Catholic higher education. You can read more stories by clicking “Campus Chronicles” in the Categories section to the right or by clicking here. For the latest updates on Catholic LGBT issues, subscribe to our blog in the upper right hand corner of this page.
–Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry
As a Holy Cross alumnus, and also as someone who has gotten to meet and chat with Prof. Rawson at the Annual HC GALA (“Gay And Lesbian Alumni”) Homecoming festivities, I’m really delighted to see this story item. Jesuit colleges and universities are almost always “top level” in supporting their GLBTQ students and faculty. Now if only the more conservative Catholic educational institutions would follow along, I think we’d all find ourselves in a far better and more optimistic frame of mind.