FUND FOR REUNION/PRINCETON BTGALA
A Non-profit Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Princeton Alumni, Students, Faculty and Staff
P.O. Box 1481, Princeton, New Jersey 08542
| NEWS FROM THE FUND FOR REUNION/PRINCETON BTGALA A Non-profit Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Princeton Alumni, Students, Faculty and Staff P.O. Box 1481, Princeton, New Jersey 08542 |
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| Volume XV, No. 1 | December, 2001 |
The Fund for Reunion, Inc. is extremely proud to announce that our endowment ended our fiscal year 2000/2001 at $1,100,000. Despite the recent roller coaster market place, as of December 15, 2001, the endowment was $1.3 million.
It's a new year for us, and we're trying something new. Though our business year goes from Reunion to Reunion, this year, we're setting dues to the calendar year. If you send us your dues now, we'll mark you as M2002! Those of you who sent dues since this past Reunion will also get credit for 2002.
Again, whatever pleases you most about us:
Member dues are just $25 per year. Friends, Benefactors and Patrons have the honor of watching their contributions make even more of a difference to FFR's work:
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In the spring 2001 FFR hosted three events related to the endowment, including on-campus discussions about the endowment in April and again in May, and a panel at reunions. In addition, in September we met individually with a number of key interested faculty and administrators.
The spring on-campus meetings were attended by some prominent administrators and deans, including new Vice President of Campus Life Janet Dickerson, who stands ready to support FFR and Princeton's LGBT community, and the Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, as well as the student group, the Pride Alliance. Recent activities on campus included a LGBT policy conference organized by Bryan Dalton *01, a WWS grad. Events like this highlighted both the level of openness and interest in Princeton today in LGBT scholarship and community building, and also the considerable challenges posed by the dispersion of this interest across many different groups who rarely gather in the same room. Among these are the undergraduate student Pride Alliance, deans of undergraduate and graduate student life, VP of campus life, various faculty, and the staff-administration task force on LGBT issues. An example of this ivory tower separation: a quirk of student funding at Princeton prevents the undergraduate Pride Alliance from officially representing grad students.
One of the goals of the EEC is to recommend ways of using the endowment, and a second and perhaps more important goal is to spur interest on campus to generate new programs from within. We hope to continue these discussions and work to bring the on-campus groups together.
The reunions panel continued the discussion, with Ara Tucker '01, Bryan Dalton *01, Jessie Washington, Special Projects Director, and Professor Michael Cadden joining me in a lively discussion with alumni on issues of future fundraising goals, present campus climate, and investment strategy.
Among the earliest ideas for ultimate uses of the endowment: a chair in LGBT studies (at $3.5 million, out of reach for now, and difficult to fit within Princeton's present academic structure), a visiting speaker series (as much as $1 million for an endowed series, concerns about its reach, although perhaps we can work on co-sponsoring individual lectures with the university or a less ambitious, non-endowed annual program), summer support for existing faculty to develop courses and ultimately a certificate of study in LGBT studies (uncertain price tag). All of these require active commitment and involvement of faculty. Of course, all of these things could be funded from within the University, and we hope to continue to spark interest in this internal commitment to advancing LGBT community and scholarship.
To this end, over the summer we focused on gathering a list of faculty, and initiated a private electronic discussion group, FFRendowment, for all endowment exploratory committee discussions. Expanding beyond the 23 people who expressed an interest in working on the EEC, FFRendowment now has 60 subscribers, including 25 Princeton faculty and staff (about evenly divided between both). As the Princeton academic year develops we hope to use this to facilitate bridge building within Princeton.
After years of encouraging Princeton's administrators to upgrade the position dedicated to serve Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) students, FFR is pleased to report significant progress.
This summer, Debbie Bazarsky, became Princeton's first full-time and year-round professional LGBT Services Coordinator and Assistant Dean of the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students. We are pleased to introduce Debbie, her accomplishments and plans.
Throughout her career as a student affairs professional, she has broken new ground at prestigious institutions such as the Maryland Institute College of Art, Ohio State University and the University of California in Santa Barbara. At UC Santa Barbara, she was the first LGBT director and built a comprehensive program where before none had existed. She staunchly advocated for better services to LGBT students and has confronted issues of homophobia and apathy, applying carefully selected strategies which include individual and group counseling, peer education, extensive programming which offer opportunities for positive social interaction.
When she arrived at Princeton, her first priority was to design a complete programming calendar, unprecedented at the University, which includes activities jointly planned with the Pride Alliance, Princeton's undergraduate LGBT student organization.
She has established close working relationships with the office of Student Health, the office of religious life and is actively counseling undergraduate students.
Facing the reality that homophobia continues to impact the lives of many LGBT undergraduates at Princeton, Debbie is enhancing current incident reporting and response mechanisms as well as studying current prevention and education efforts to determine if any improvements could be made.
She is reviving the dormant LGBT Task Force, which traditionally was comprised of undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, staff and alumni. A goal of the Task Force will be to take a look at the climate faced by Princeton LGBT students, faculty, and staff.
Debbie's position is currently limited to undergraduate students and 20% of her time is dedicated to other student affairs. She agreed with us that it would be nice see the position expanded to include graduate students, and the amount of her time dedicated to the LGBT community increased to 100%.
She plans to start a new Princeton tradition for LGBT graduating seniors, a lavender graduation, which would serve as an introduction to FFR and help FFR increase its recognition among future young alumni and to ideally increase its young alumni membership.
FFR is delighted to have Debbie on campus and on the job. We will keep you informed on her progress. If you would like to contact Debbie, her e-mail address is bazarsky@princeton.edu.
| Operating Fund | |
| Opening Balance | $4,688.62 |
| Income | |
| Dues and Contributions | 6,080.00 |
| Expenses | |
| Scholarships | 1,610.00 |
| Pride Alliance Funding | 1,500.00 |
| Newsletter | 1,476.78 |
| Reunions | 1,076.26 |
| Alumni Events | 727.78 |
| Endowment Committee | 473.77 |
| Other | 70.00 |
| Closing Balance* | $3,834.03 |
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Endowment ** | |
| Opening Balance | $728,915.48 |
| Interest/Dividends | ( 21,256.81) |
| Gain/Loss ** | 384,542.74 |
| Closing Balance | $1,092,201.41 |
Notes:
There has been so much activity this year regionally, that we're going to have to gloss over it way too quickly.... There are many to acknowledge and no doubt we will miss some - our apologies in advance for any oversight.
All-ivy mixers sponsored by FFR took off in the big apple - our first at Wonderbar in July drew about 30 young alumni, mostly from Princeton. In August, our event at Barrage pulled in about 100 people and put the bar over capacity - late comers had to wait outside in line to get in.... Due to the tragic events here, we cancelled our September party. In October we got back on our feet and cosponsored an event with Stanford at XL that brought in about 200 alumni from many of the ivy league schools. In December, we had a private Christmas party, that had about 50 people, including about 10 current Princeton students and the new LGBT Services Coordinator Debra Bazarsky.
Thanks to our intrepid Richard Johnson '75, we've had monthly mixers in San Francisco as well! With lots of support from Princeton alums and participation from Penn, Cornell, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Cal and Wharton, the Northern California contingent has been holding monthly social gatherings every month since August. Locations have ranged from the trendy to the offbeat and averaged 30 people. Most recently, we held our Holiday Party at the Argent Hotel which attracted alumni from five Ivy schools.
Plans for the New Year include continued Second Thursday social gatherings, theatre nights, and guest speaker events. We look forward to more of these events and to growing our base in the bay area.
We have had one event each in Los Angeles, Boston, and Washington DC. Each one has been well attended with 40 or so in L.A., about 25 in Boston, and about 75 in DC. Special thanks to Dan Berkowitz '70, Donna Nadeau '62, Armando Oliva '79, and Dan Shih '94 for there efforts here! We expect to have regular events in DC in 2002 and hope to have additional events in Los Angeles and Boston.
These events have caused a big increase in our membership rolls - in the past 6 months we've added about 100 new alumni to our list!
So why haven't you heard of these events? Because of the very large numbers of alumni on our rolls and the frequency of the events, we have been inviting alumni only via the web and by e-mail. If you want to receive our monthly events e-newsletter, send us your e-mail address! Alternatively you can tune into our now frequently updated web site.
FFR includes 746 Princeton alumni, faculty, and staff.
By Class
We cover just about every class since 1945 (we have no members from the classes of 1945 and 1952).
Our oldest alum is from the class of 1931 and our largest class is 1985 with 35 alumni.
| 1935 and Prior | 2 |
| 1936 - 1940 | 1 |
| 1941 - 1945 | 1 |
| 1946 - 1950 | 6 |
| 1951 - 1955 | 8 |
| 1956 - 1960 | 17 |
| 1961 - 1965 | 31 |
| 1966 - 1970 | 33 |
| 1971 - 1975 | 43 |
| 1976 - 1980 | 68 |
| 1981 - 1985 | 124 |
| 1986 - 1990 | 105 |
| 1991 - 1995 | 78 |
| 1996 - 2000 | 60 |
| 2001 - 2005 | 30 |
| Graduate Degrees | 98 |
| Faculty & Staff | 41 |
| Female | 167 |
| Male | 574 |
| Transgender | 5 |
| Boston | 52 |
| Midwest | 34 |
| New York City and Environs | 310 |
| Northern California | 71 |
| Philadelphia | 25 |
| South | 51 |
| Southern California | 58 |
| Washington, DC | 62 |
| Other US | 39 |
| Foreign | 31 |
| Unknown | 13 |
| Paid through 2001 or 2002 | 128 |
| Ever Paid Dues | 224 |
| Never Paid Dues | 406 |
A couple of you responded to my article in a previous issue about updating our name. In deference to our rapid growth and maturing (and wanting to avoid a prolonged discussion about the best name), we're making a little change. Legally, we're still Fund for Reunion, Inc., but for the purpose of the web and our printed material we're now using Fund for Reunion/Princeton BTGALA. Not in your face, but I think it retains a certain flair while acknowledging the growing presence of bisexual and transgendered alumni in our organization.
Thoughts?
The events of 9/11 affected everyone, including Princeton University. Of the 13 alumni that passed away on this awful day, the FFR community was affected by two.
Robert was attending a meeting on the 106th floor of the north tower on September 11th, 2001. He is the beloved brother of Michele (Mimi) Haobsh, cousin and best friend of Randa Tohme and devoted nephew of Doctor Maurice Deraney of Ridgewood, NJ.
FFR grieves along with his family on account of his passing.
FFR member Robert Klitzman '80 lost his sister Karen Klitzman '84 in the horrible events on September 11. We would like to take this opportunity to express our deep sadness and heartfelt support to Rob and his family.
In memory of her, his family has established a fund: The Karen J. Klitzman Memorial Fellowship For the Elimination of Terrorism and the Resolution of Conflict at the Columbia University School of Public and International Affairs, which she attended after graduating from Princeton in 1984.
For more information, visit the web site at: http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/tragedy/karenk.htm
For those interested, contributions may be sent to :
Dean Anderson
School of International and Public Affairs
Columbia University
420 West 118th St.
New York, NY 10027.
Write to us at PO Box 1481, Princeton, NJ 08542. For faster response, send e-mail to
Fund for Reunion
You can sign up for FFR/Princeton BTGALA using our mail form.
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This page was created by and for the Fund For Reunion. Information on this page is intended for individual communication of a personal nature among Princetonians. Use of this information for any other purpose is strictly prohibited. |
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Solely the Fund For Reunion is responsible for the content on this page. Although we make every effort to keep this information accurate and up to date, we cannot guarantee it. This page is maintained by Shawn Cowls '87 FSA MAAA.
The Fund for Reunion, Inc., is a 501c3 not-for-profit corporation
incorporated in 1986 independent of Princeton University with the goal of
improving Princeton's relationships with its LGBT community, including
alums, students, faculty, and staff. For more information, visit our
website at
http://alumni.princeton.edu/~ffr-gala/
or send us an e-mail by going to the
Fund for Reunion Email page.
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This document was last modified on January 2, 2002.