NEWS FROM THE FUND FOR REUNION/PRINCETON GALA A Non-profit Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Princeton Alumni, Students, Faculty and Staff P.O. Box 1481, Princeton, New Jersey 08542
Volume 1, No. 2	May, 1987

Contents

Reunions Schedule

With a name like the "Fund for Reunion/Princeton GALA," how could we not plan events for gay and lesbian alumni during the Princeton University Reunions? This year we are excited to be able to offer not only the "traditional" Saturday afternoon gay and lesbian cocktail party, but also a panel discussion on Saturday morning entitled "The impact of AIDS." The panel will look beyond AIDS as a medical dilemma to explore the legal, political, emotional, and cultural ramifications of this deadly disease. Panelists will include Abby Rubenfeld '75, Legal Director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Mark Blasius *78, Lecturer in Political Science at the City University of New York, Richard Limoges '60, a psychiatrist in private practice, and Michael Cadden, Assistant Professor of English at Princeton University.

A reception for gay and lesbian Princetonians will be held after the P-Rade (approximately 4:00 PM) in Corwin Lounge. Following the reception will be the Annual Meeting of the Fund for Reunion/Princeton GALA, also in Corwin Lounge. The meeting will be open to all FFR?GALA members, as well as to anyone else who would like to observe. At the meeting we will discuss our accomplishments over the past year and our plans for the future.

Jim Saslow '69 Speaks at Alumni Day

On Saturday, February 21, the Fund for Reunion (along with the Gay Alliance of Princeton) hosted its first on-campus Alumni Day event, a lecture by Jim Saslow '69, Assistant Professor of Art and Archaeology at Columbia University. Jim, author of Ganymede and the Renaissance (Yale University Press, 1986), spoke on "Closets in the Archives: Issues in Gay and Lesbian Historical Research." Jim is a trail-blazer when it comes to gay and lesbian research and has done more than his share of nudging open hermetically sealed archival closet doors. After Jim's illuminating and entertaining lecture, we hosted a cocktail party, which was followed by a party thrown by GAP. All told, approximately 50 students, alumni, faculty, and Princeton-area residents joined us for Alumni Day.

GALAs Meet at Columbia University

Over the weekend of march 28 & 29, Mark Blasius *78, Richard Limoges '60, and Glenn Lunden *85 joined representatives from over 35 gay and lesbian alumni organizations in a conference called to discuss the how's, when's, and why's of putting together GALAs. The conference held under the auspices of the Network of Gay and Lesbian Alumni/ae Associations, took place at Columbia University, where the student Gay and lesbian Alliance is celebrating its twentieth anniversary. The conference was held jointly with the North East Lesbian and Gay Student Union Conference, which attracted over four hundred gay and lesbian students. Highlights of the weekend included speeches by playwright/activist Larry Kramer, and openly gay Boston City Councilman David Scondras, and a dinner/dance at The Saint.

The conference made clear the vitality of the university gay and lesbian movement — both on-campus and off. The Fund for Reunion/Princeton GALA, as a not-for-profit educational and cultural organization, in many ways may be representative of the next "step" in the evolution of our student and alumni movement — the banding together of alumni, faculty, and staff to support and encourage not only gay and lesbian students, but also gay and lesbian studies.

On-Campus Break Through: First Gay and Lesbian Course Makes It Into the Catalogue

Next Spring, Assistant Professor of English (and FFR/GALA Trustee) Michael Cadden will offer what we believe is the first gay and lesbian course ever to be listed in the Princeton University Course catalogue. Titled "Textuality and Sexuality," the course will explore homosexuality in literature through the ages. Now if only there had been a course like this one just a few years earlier...

Merger Mania Hits The Fund for Reunion and Princeton GALA

You may have noticed that we are now calling ourselves The Fund for Reunion/Princeton GALA. On February 21, 1987, The Fund for Reunion and Princeton GALA merged. The merger brings to Princeton GALA The Fund for Reunion's resources and educational/cultural mandate, while it brings to The Fund for Reunion Princeton GALA's social network and ties to the general gay and lesbian alumni movement. We think the merger makes a lot of sense, and we're excited by the prospects for the future. (For those of you who are already worrying about your 1987 tax deductions, we have merged in such a way that all donations to The Fund for Reunion/Princeton GALA will still be tax deductible.)

Developing the Resources

The Fund for Reunion/Princeton GALA is now moving into "high gear" in its quest to obtain the resources necessary to sponsor more lecture, films, and events at Princeton and to put into place a mechanism for supporting gay and lesbian research and studies. Co-chairing the Development Committee are Shawn Cowls '87 and Ted Eastwick '78. Shawn and Ted, along with Jack Schlegal '57, are chock full of good ideas for raising money, in fact, a fund-raiser is scheduled for Monday, May 4, and will be held in New York at Roy Young '62's penthouse. Future plans include a Fire Island party this Summer.

Job Clearing House: Putting the "Old Boy" & "Old Girl" Networks To Good Use

Princeton, of course, is notorious for epitomizing the "Old Boy" (and now "Old Girl") network when it comes to job-hunting — "it's not what you know, it's who you know." The Fund for Reunion/Princeton GALA is ideally placed to join in this sort of notoriety — with a gay and lesbian twist. We're sure all of you are familiar with that feeling of insecurity that comes with being gay and closeted in a homophobic work environment, and we're certain that many of you can give good advice to Princetonians just starting out in the working world on how to cope with such situations. (We're also certain that many of you can help steer gay and lesbian Princetonians towards good jobs.)

Intrigued? So are we! What we'd like to do is put together a list of alums willing to talk with gay and lesbian students — give them advice and maybe even give them jobs. Students will be able to contact us, and we in turn will put them in touch with alums in professions and cities that interest them. If you want to help out, send your name, class, profession, work affiliation and address, contact address, and phone number to Fund for Reunion All responses will be used only within the context of this job clearing house. Your names will not be given to the Princeton University career planning office.

Alumni Notes

We all love juicy gossip. The Fund for Reunion/Princeton GALA newsletter is your opportunity to let your fellow gay and lesbian Princeton alumni know what you're up to — in a way that won't be hopelessly edited in the interest of so-called good taste by the PAW. Write to us at Fund for Reunion with all the latest, delicious tidbits, and we'll be sure to embarrass — or, rather, include — you in our next edition. Now, onto the gossip...

A photo of Jim Saslow '69 made it into the March 30 issue of Newsday. Jim was all dressed up as the "Grand Duchess Anastasia Sazlova" at the "Night of a Thousand Gowns," an AIDS benefit held at the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria on Saturday, March 28. When he's not in drag, Jim can be found on the Board of Directors of GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation"). Jim, by the way, has had to drop editing the FFR/Princeton GALA newsletter (much as he loved putting together the last one) because of his many other commitments.

Jim Hulbert '69 writes that he will soon be leaving Rochester, New York, and moving to Washington, DC, where his lover, David, will be a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute. For the past eight years, Jim has been teaching French, German, and comparative literature at the university of Rochester — but he wants to get out of academia and try something new. In DC, Jim hopes to find work in something "that will pay enough, when combined with David's postdoc pay, to keep our English Springer spaniels off the street (except when nature calls).

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This document was last modified on September 27, 2003.