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 XVII, No. 1 | October, 2003 |
FFR and Princeton University's LGBT Student Services are pleased to announce the inauguration of The Fund for Reunion LGBTQ Lecture Series, a program of lectures on gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer topics. The first installment takes place during the 2003/2004 academic year.
The inaugural slate of lectures takes place over the course of the 2003/2004 academic year and will consist of from twelve to fourteen lectures on LGBTQ topics. At press time, ten lectures have been confirmed. In a unique collaboration with Yale University's Larry Kramer Initiative in Lesbian and Gay Studies, six of these lectures are being coordinated by the Larry Kramer Initiative and will be presented at both Princeton and Yale Universities.
The total cost of the lecture series is expected to be about $25,000. FFR has agreed to provide $14,000, with LGBT Student Services taking responsibility for finding the remaining funds. Already Debbie Bazarsky, the GLGBT Student Services Coordinator, has secured $8,000 in promised funding from various University sources, including the Frist Campus Center and the Dean of Undergraduate Students.
Following is the current list of lectures planned for the 2003/2004 academic year. Lectures marked with an asterisk will be presented at both Princeton and Yale.
All lectures are open to the public free of charge. Check the website of the LGBT service coordinator for details at:
Once again there has been too much activity this year regionally to do it all justice! FFR President Shawn Cowls '87 has published a monthly events newsletter that is now distributed to alumni of all of the Ivy League and Seven Sisters schools as well as a number of other universities, announcing events of interest to our various constituencies. Initially these events were organized by Princeton alumni. Increasingly, alumni from other schools are organizing events and inviting Princeton alumni via this newsletter. There are many to acknowledge and no doubt we will miss some - our apologies for any oversight. Though our printed newsletter does not come out frequently, we have been far from idle! We have had monthly events around the country for all of the past year.
Special thanks to our intrepid crew of FFR members, including Lex Kelso '71, Bob Hotes '85, Philip Mahin '85, David Beaty '50, Jeff Napoleon '89, Aleks Donev GS, and Cemile "Blue" Guldal GS. Kelso turned out a marvelous mixer in Whig Hall for Friday night. Mahin and Beaty's Saturday afternoon reception was one of our best attended ever. Of special note was the appearance of Shirley Tilghman, Princeton University's current president, at our reception. This is the first time a Princeton University president has attended an event for LGBT alumni. President Tilghman took advantage of the opportunity to say a few unrehearsed words to the attendees. She spoke eloquently and acknowledged the contribution of LGBTQ Princetonians.
We moved the dance to Whig. The new location meant that it was truly our dance with a crowd of 50 to 60 young and predominately LGBTQ alumni in attendance. Special thanks to Donev, who put the dance together, Guldal, who DJ'd, and Tom McKeeff GS who tended bar.
We have continued monthly events in New York City for Princeton alumni and our friends from other schools. Events regularly have more than 100 alumni from a variety of schools. Though the flow of new Princeton alumni has slowed down tremendously, we still hear nothing but positives from our attendees. Our October event will be sponsored by the Advocate - in return, we will get a 1/3 page ad in an October issue free of charge, which should help us find alumni around the country. In addition, Sam Adams Light is donating beer to the event. Our women's events in NYC have picked up steam - with consistent attendance of between 40 and 75 women.
For the coming year, we hope to branch out with more variety of venues and types of events. In October we are planning a tour of the Chelsea art galleries. We are working with Yale on a Cognac tasting for November and coordinating with Yale and UVA on a Holiday party. Check out our website for up to the minute details and let us know if you have any ideas for events.
FFR President, Shawn Cowls '87, organized two events for the newly formed Princeton Association of NYC as it gets off the ground. We hope that PANYC will help us spread the word about FFR to the rest of the New York Princeton population.
Our San Francisco events are now on their third life and doing well. In September we hosted an event for women in addition to our regular event. In October we will also host a Princeton only event. We are looking into a museum event for the fall. The Princeton Club of Northern California has graciously announced one of our recent events and we look forward to working more closely with them.
Special thanks to the Stanford alumnus Nick Kelley for his efforts in planning and hosting these events!
We had three events in L.A. this year, two in Boston, and four events in Washington, DC. Each one was very well attended, with 50 to 100 people. Special thanks to Dan Berkowitz '70, Armando Oliva '79, and Dan Shih '94 for their efforts here! We are seeking volunteers to help plan events in Boston and Providence.
We held two events each in Chicago, Seattle, and Fort Lauderdale and one in London, England.
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 in to the events page on our web site.
As indicated this past year, our dues year now corresponds to the calendar year. If you send us your dues now, we'll mark you as Member 200r! Those of you who sent dues since this past Reunion will also get credit for 2004. Again, whatever pleases you most about us:
All of these are supported out of our operating budget, which is funded by your contributions. Act now and renew your membership with a contribution! Your dues are particularly important this year as we plan for significantly increased expense needs related to the Pride Alliance and to our academic initiatives on campus
Contributions to FFR are tax-deductible! Please drop us an e-mail if your contribution wasn't properly noted.
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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| Operating Fund | |
| Opening Balance | $5,443.94 |
| Income | |
| Dues and Contributions | 16,545.00 |
| Events | 1,386.00 |
| Expenses | |
| Campus Related Funding | 5,600.00 |
| Scholarships | 1,250.00 |
| Newsletter | 949.98 |
| Reunions | 2,221.98 |
| Transfer to Endowment | 4,550.00 |
| Other Expenses | 159.48 |
| Closing Balance | $ 8,643.50 |
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Endowment | |
| Opening Balance | $1,240,678.46 |
| Transfers | 4,550.00 |
| Interest/Dividends | 7,919.68 |
| Gain/Loss | 28,966.88 |
| Closing Balance | $1,282,115.02 |
Notes:
Our business year runs from Reunions to Reunions.
Dues and contributions were double the prior year's contributions.
We awarded a small amount of scholarship funding and had significantly higher expenses
associated with the LGBT student groups, primarily due
to the Lavender Graduation Ceremony we sponsored for out graduating seniors and grad students and the
Creating Change conference.
Investment results in the endowment fund greatly exceeded expectations again, with investment earnings of about 3% in a year when many experienced significant investment losses. Once again we thank our investment manager Brandon Fradd '83. We transferred funds from the operating budget to the endowment reflecting last year's signficant excess of earnings over expenses.
This summer Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer A. Scott Berg '71 h'03 - who just retired as an Alumni Trustee - published a biographical memoir, KATE REMEMBERED, which immediately jumped to the top of every bestseller list in the country - number one on the New York Times list for over a month. The book - published within weeks of Katharine Hepburn's death, as was her desire - is a chronicle of Scott's twenty-year friendship with the four-time-Oscar-winning actress and social icon. During the course of the book, Miss Hepburn reminisces - recounting and reflecting upon the stories of her life. In reviewing the book, The London Times wrote, "Berg and Hepburn have a similar chemistry on the page to Tracy and Hepburn on screen. KATE REMEMBERED is a worthy testament of Scott Berg's love for his elderly, captivating, solicitous friend." At Class Day this year, the graduating seniors inducted Scott into the Class of 2003 as an honorary member.
Richard F. Limoges MD '60, a Charter Trustee of FFR, was named a Distinguished Life Fellow at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Limoges is President of the Pennsylvania Society of Addiction Medicine and a Fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. He is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at The University of Pennsylvania and in full-time private practice.
The Savant Academy supports the education of people with Savant Syndrome, including musical, mathematical, artistic, verbal, and calendrical savants. The organization encourages research into and awareness of Savant Syndrome. Founded by David Mehnert '87 in Los Angeles in 2003, it is the first US non-profit of its kind.
David is working part time on the organization and hopes to raise enough funds to manage it full time. David seeded the organization with a $10,000 grant he won in the Volvo for Life Awards competition. The award is in recognition of his work with an autistic child, showing that the talents associated with Savant Syndrome may actually be coachable. In part due to David's work with the child over the past three years, the child can now play the piano, sing, and speak. The child has since been diagnosed as a "prodigious musical savant," perhaps the best in a generation.
60 Minutes will broadcast a piece about David's work on their premier broadcast on September 28th. For more information about the Savant Academy, visit its website at http://www.savantfoundation.org/
Brian Kremen '75 and Mike Plaus will be married on November 1 in Canada, formalizing an 18 year relationship.
Kelley Sortino '03 has been hired as an Admissions Officer for Princeton University.
Note this section is expanded from the print newsletter edition. FFR includes 858 Princeton alumni, faculty, and staff - 50 more than we had last year.
By Class
With the exception of the class of '52, we cover every class since 1945.
Our oldest alum is from the class of '38 and our largest class is '85 with 36 alumni
followed closely by '87 with 34. Hold outs include
the class of 2000 with only seven alumni and the class of 1970 with only nine.
| 1940 and Prior | 1 |
| 1941 - 1945 | 1 |
| 1946 - 1950 | 8 |
| 1951 - 1955 | 10 |
| 1956 - 1960 | 17 |
| 1961 - 1965 | 31 |
| 1966 - 1970 | 31 |
| 1971 - 1975 | 43 |
| 1976 - 1980 | 72 |
| 1981 - 1985 | 131 |
| 1986 - 1990 | 113 |
| 1991 - 1995 | 91 |
| 1996 - 2000 | 73 |
| 2001 + | 72 |
| Graduate Degrees | 127 |
| Faculty and Staff | 37 |
We're from all over the world. The New York City, Southern California and Washington DC each grew about 10%. All other regions held steady.
| Boston | 56 |
| Midwest | 47 |
| New York City and Environs | 350 |
| Northern California | 79 |
| Philadelphia | 29 |
| South | 61 |
| Southern California | 72 |
| Washington, DC | 75 |
| Other US | 51 |
| Foreign | 38 |
Men still outnumber the women 3 to 1, though our number of women grew at twice the rate of the men (8% versus 4%). Transgendered alumni remain a very small percentage of our base.
| Female | 183 |
| Male | 618 |
| Transgender | 7 |
Almost twice as many of us have paid dues in the past two years as reported last year. Half of us have never paid dues.
| Paid through 2002 or 2003.. | 236 |
| Ever Paid Dues | 191 |
| Never Paid Dues | 431 |
On May 10th, the second annual Lavender Graduation was held, this year in the historic Faculty Room of Nassau Hall. Twenty-nine graduating students participated, with a large audience of family, friends, lovers, and honored guests in supportive attendance. Citations were awarded to many for extraordinary achievements in improving LGBT life on campus. The FFR Recognition Award, which carries a cash prize, was split between Kristopher Kersey, for his contribution to improving campus life, and Cemile "Blue" Guldal, for her efforts bringing alumni and students together. President Tilghman spoke, urging all to stay as proactive and involved in later life as they were on campus. She noted that the LGBT community was so diverse that one of the students had even majored in her own field of micro-biology! In conclusion, she draped ceremoniously a lavender tassel around the neck of each student.
The QGC has designed a new t-shirt for Princeton's LGBTQ community. On the front it will say Princeton University with a rainbow bar. On the back it will say "Supporting LGBTQ Diversity" with a list of Princeton's LGBTQ resources, including the student groups, FFR, LGBT Student Services (Debbie Bazarsky's office), LGBT Peer Educators, the LGBT Task Force, and the Ally Project. The T-shirt will be sold for $10 each to students and $15 each to alumni. The shirts will be available at all LGBTQ events on campus and at Reunions.
In April, the USG (University Student Government) held a campus wide forum on homophobia that was co-facilitated by Chris Wendel of the USG and Caroline Baker of the Pride Alliance. Over 100 students attended, as well as key officials of the University, including President Shirley Tilghman and VP Janet Dickerson.
Princeton provides health benefits to the spouses of students, faculty, and staff. For a number of years, benefits available to mixed gender couples have also been made available to same gender couples in the staff and faculty. A graduate student recently attempted to enroll her partner in the dental plan with the University, a benefit currently available to spouses of students and found that the University policy did not cover same gender partners of students.
FFR/Princeton BTGALA has approached the University on the issue, affirming our strong support for providing the same benefits to same gender couples that are provided to married couples. The Student Health Plan Operational Committee has met and will propose a change in policy to the University. We hope the University will make the right decision and update their policy effective immediately. We will post the final decision of the University on the web version of this newsletter.
Noted LGBT scholar Henry Abelove will be at Princeton as the Stanley Kelley Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching. This one year position is awarded by the University to one professor a year in recognition of exceptional teaching ability. Abelove is a professor of eighteenth-century Anglophone literature and culture and the history of sexuality at Wesleyan University. He has taught LGBT courses for many years, including "The Newest Minority," a survey of lesbian and gay history and literature in England and America from the 19th century to the 1970s. Two other regular courses are "Queer Theory" and "The History of Sexuality." At Princeton, Abelove will teach a course titled "18th Century English Literature." He wrote "The Evangelist of Desire: John Wesley and the Methodists" and "Deep Gossip," essays on historical and literary LGBT topics from the 18th Century to the present. He is a co-editor of The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader.
Professor Jeff Nunokawa of the English Department of Princeton University, new book "Tame Passions of Wilde: The Styles of Manageable Desire," currently being published by the Princeton University Press. In his book, Nunokawa traces the variety of social pressures that inspired Oscar Wilde's lifelong effort to concoct forms of desire that thrill without menacing us, as well as the alchemies by which he sought to do so. This book recognizes Wilde not only as a blatant symptom of a familiar understanding of modern sexuality, but also as a grand theorist of the subject in his own right. The result is a wholly original portrait of the artist as a social critic who, in the midst of his humor, labored to illuminate and amend the book of love. Jeff Nunokawa is a professor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the English Department and one of the faculty in the Program in the Study of Women and Gender. He has a PhD from Cornell and his fields are Victorian literature, the history of sexuality, and social theory. He is currently working on a book about dissident desire and boredom in 19th century literature.
Lecturer Kiki Jamieson of the Politics Department is offering an LGBT related seminar this fall, titled "Politics 412 - Law, Politics, and Sexuality." This seminar analyzes the extent to which laws have been used to regulate sexuality. Materials include theoretical sources that describe and justify the scope of political control of sexuality, and then move to discussions of particular issues. The course will cover: criminalization of prostitution, miscegenation, sterilization and eugenics, rape, AIDS activism, marriage, pornography, consensual sex, identity politics, homosexuality, heterosexuality, and gender identity. Readings offer both theoretical and doctrinal approaches. Students will consider how laws have been used to regulate sexuality; how political power has been granted or denied based on sexuality; and how individuals and groups have organized around sexuality to fight for rights and power.
Jamieson has also taught Discrimination and the Law (Politics 317), which discusses theoretical and practical components of discrimination on the basis of non-hetero sexuality, including the status-conduct distinction and laws regulating some sexual practices but not others (the recent Lawrence v Texas case). Another seminar (Politics 411: Political Theory and Gender) includes attention to the political implications of gender construction and the consequences for family policy (the debate over same-sex marriage and the rights of gay parents).
As many of you already know, FFR is a non-profit 501c3 corporation, incorporated independent of Princeton University. We have an operating fund that we use for our day-to-day operations, and an endowment which is earmarked for special endeavors. We are run by a talented, devoted, unpaid board of volunteers. Returning members are: David Beaty '50, Mark Blasius *90, Shawn Cowls '87, Gordon Harrison '68 *70, Robert Hotes '85, Dick Limoges '60, Philip Mahin '85, Jeff Napoleon '89, Marcus Tye '90, and Elise Wright '83. We welcome our new board member Anne-Marie Barrett '02 who has set up conference calls for our board meetings, allowing the involvement of alumni outside of the NYC/Princeton/Philadelphia area. Many thanks to outgoing board member Brandon Fradd '83 for his years of service!
We are looking for more volunteers to help, particularly with our website, the newsletters, campus support, and alumni events and fundraisers. Please contact us if you would like more information.
Contacting Us: We can be reached at:
Fund for Reunion/Princeton BTGALA, P. O. Box 1481, Princeton, NJ 08542
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Fund for Reunion
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This document was last modified on October 1, 2003.