What happens when nine homos from colleges across the country get together for a weekend in Chicago? Nope, it’s not a hotel sex party. It’s the first-ever meeting of out college and university presidents.
Of twenty-five invited, nine out academic leaders came together to form LGBTQ Presidents in Higher Education, which has the grand goal of “encourag[ing] more gay academics to aspire to leadership positions and want[ing] to push higher education to include issues of sexual orientation when talking about diversity.” There was Charles Middleton, president of Roosevelt University; Raymond Crossman, president of the Adler School of Professional Psychology; and Theodora J. Kalikow, president of the University of Maine at Farmington. And they talked about themselves!
One of the topics of discussion at the meeting was how to view the extent of progress in presidencies being open to gay candidates. While the numbers today would have been shocking a generation ago, most of the presidents said that there are many colleges that because of their location, religious ties or other factors are highly unlikely to be open to gay presidential candidates, at least in the near future. Many of the colleges that have named gay presidents are places with “strong social justice missions,” Crossman said.
I’m guessing we won’t be seeing anybody from Bob Jones or Liberty join the ranks anytime soon?
jerry pritikin
Thanks to Roosevelt University’s President Charles Middleton,
My exhibit “San Francisco in the 1970s” has been featured at their Gage Gallery for the past few months. Beside being proud to have been asked to exhibit there, it is their “Mission Statement”
Social Justice, that invite photographers to exhibit historic images of changes taking place here, there and everywhere. The exhibit was a great success, and again I am thankful for all the help I had from their great staff.