For more than 30 years, students have worked with faculty and administrators for recognition of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender concerns on campus, seeing only gradual improvement.
Decades of frustration gave way to celebration yesterday with the grand opening of the LGBT Center in Frist Campus Center, marked by speeches by President Tilghman and Executive Vice President Mark Burstein.
"It was important practically and symbolically that we provide a place that would allow LGBT students to flourish," Tilghman said in an interview.
The LGBT Center includes a library, lounge, seating area and workspace, all meant to create a comfortable area for students.
"We were named among the top 20 universities in the country for LGBT student life," Tilghman said in her speech, "which was more important to me than the U.S. News mention of Princeton as the top university in the nation."
Tilghman authorized the LGBT Center's creation in fall 2003, when representatives from undergraduate, graduate and alumni LGBT awareness organizations presented her with a formal proposal.
"We walked out of Nassau Hall just having heard a resounding 'yes' and we just didn't know what to say," said Kris Kersey '04, former president of the Pride Alliance, a student group that supports the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community on campus.
A major turning point came with the 2001 hiring of LGBT Center director Debbie Bazarsky, who had previously served as the LGBT student services coordinator.
Since leaving their original headquarters in Aaron Burr Hall in 2001 due to renovations, Bazarsky and the Pride Alliance relocated from temporary headquarters in Frist to West College to Dillon Court and finally to the unfinished LGBT Center in March 2006.
"There was not much privacy [in previous locations]," Bazarsky said. "Now there are students stopping in all the time, students who didn't feel comfortable doing that in West College."
Larry Lyons GS, Caitlin Edwards '07 and Paul Pawlowski '07 also spoke at yesterday's ceremony, sharing their thoughts on LGBT student life on campus and the effect the new center will have.
"It serves as a haven, a place of solace and refuge to those of us that have no such place on campus, in classes or even in our dorms," Lyons said. Thursday's event also featured a slideshow of the history of the gay community at Princeton, beginning with the creation of the Gay Alliance in 1972. Pictures included a variety of advertisements and articles in The Daily Princetonian covering key LGBT events.
The LGBT Center, Pride Alliance Queer Graduate Student Caucus and Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students sponsored a '70s-themed dance in the top floor of New South last night, commemorating the first such "Gay Dance" at the same location in 1973 (see sidebar).
Origins of the Center
The origins of the LGBT Center proposal began with the formation of an ad hoc committee chaired by Carl Wartenburg, assistant to University President Harold Shapiro GS '64.
In its 1989 report, the committee issued a variety of recommendations addressing gay and lesbian needs on campus. Among these were the adoption of full domestic partnership benefits — which were added in 1994 — and the provision of additional space for the student organization currently referred to as the Pride Alliance.
"This suggestion [for additional space] was largely ignored," Pride Alliance vice president Thomas Lipp '08 said in an email.
"When I was interviewed and later when I arrived, I was told that there would never be an LGBT Center here at Princeton," Bazarsky said.
With Bazarsky's arrival, however, former Pride Alliance president Gabriel Barrett '02 began writing a proposal for an LGBT center, plans that were later revised by other students, Kersey said. "Faculty were not as involved as the Pride Alliance officers at first," he said.
Faculty involvement began in the spring of 2003 when Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson helped an LGBT taskforce edit the proposal.
"There were a lot of naysayers in the beginning who didn't think Princeton was ready," Dickerson said. "There were also many very supportive faculty members throughout the process. Now [the Center] is a stark reality, and it is beautiful."
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