Oral History with Edd Sewell, March 1, 2019 (Ms2019-001)

Ms2019-001

Interviewee: Edd Sewell

Interviewer: Joe Forte

Date: March 01, 2019

Transcribed by: Kaitlin Mantz, April 4, 2019

Audit-edited by: Kathryn Walters, July 1, 2019

Final edited by: Anthony Wright de Hernandez, August 19, 2019

Joe Forte: My name is Joe Forte, I'll be acting as interviewer for this recording session in a series of oral histories being given in commemoration of the Virginia Tech Gay Student Alliance Denim Day event, fortieth anniversary, 1979. The narrator for this session is Edd Sewell. We are in Newman Library on March 1, 2019 at 5:30 p.m. Welcome Edd, thanks for joining us, would you introduce yourself please?

Edd Sewell: Sure. My full name is Edward Holt Sewell Jr., but I go by Edd, and that's E-d-d. That's Edward without the war is how you can remember. I was born July 1, 1944 in Colorado City, Texas. I came to Virginia Tech in September--well actually August--1972 as a new faculty member, having just finished my PhD. I 1:00taught at Virginia Tech from 1972 until I retired in 2007, but I continued to teach, so I am a faculty emeritus in the Department of Communication at Virginia Tech. I was a faculty member teaching a number of different courses on Denim Day, one of the courses was Persuasion. Just to give a little background, I taught at that time, Interpersonal Communication and Persuasion were the two primary courses and some public speaking and so forth. But, I had had students enter the Interpersonal Communication class, one of them that you may know is- her name is Lisa--I won't say the last name--but it was kind of interesting because she--and I guess there were two other students--she introduced herself as Lisa the Lesbian. It's interesting because that was a fairly large class, and 2:00the day that the students from the GSA [Gay Student Alliance] were there about half the class did not show up, and several said, I just, I can't do that. I don't believe in that. So that gives some kind of a sense of the atmosphere on the campus. It wasn't necessarily hostile but it was certainly closed and not open. Most of the students didn't think they had ever met or ever knew anyone who was gay or lesbian. So they just didn't feel like they needed to worry about it. That was before Denim Day actually happened. As I say, on the time that Denim Day took place, I was teaching a course in persuasion, and we were looking at things like how do you create a persuasive environment, a movement, how do you deal with the public relations and audience responses and things like that. 3:00After Denim Day had happened, I had Nancy come in to the class--I think she was the only one who came, I don't think there was anyone with her. We simply talked about what went into the planning and what made it happen and what were the reactions, what was their evaluation of the effect of Denim Day, and again there were a few students who didn't come but it wasn't nearly as negative a reaction as had taken place a little bit earlier--probably a year earlier maybe--in the Interpersonal Communication class.

F: So in Interpersonal Communications you had a sort of a panel of folks from GSA Come to speak to the class. A lot of folks have talked about those panels. Let's start there and say, what was- I mean, did you request that visit from the 4:00GSA to the Interpersonal Communication class, or how did that come about?

S: Yes, I knew some students in the GSA and I went and said, I'm teaching this course and we're dealing with interpersonal relationships and getting to know different aspects of people's life stories and so on, so could we have at least one or maybe two or three- I would like to have both men and women. As I recall there were only women on that panel. At that time, I think it would be fair to say that women were by far the leaders. Men didn't become quite as active at first, that may be because a lot of the GSA activities grew out of the women's resource- or women's network, so they tended to be the moving forces and then 5:00men later came in and became a part of it.

F: Behind the activism within the GSA?

S: Yeah

F: Yeah

S: Very much so

F: So your class knew they were coming and about half of them stayed home?

S: Oh yes. In the Interpersonal class, yes. Some of them told me why. Some, I think just didn't come because they didn't want to be confronted with the ideas.

F: Those who came?

S: I think those who came- I know afterwards we, of course, had some discussion afterwards. And many of them were surprised because--I don't know how you say it--the representatives were so ordinary. If they saw them on campus- and in fact one or two cases they said, oh I know who, I've seen that person, I've had that person in class, so there was this sort of, well they're like us, but then 6:00there were others who wanted to be condemning of their lifestyle, and that they might look normal--and I'm using that word normal in quotation marks--they might look normal but they were of course not really normal.

F: Yeah, so some showed up for the purpose of heckling?

S: No, there was no heckling.

F: Oh okay. This is just in the discussion afterwards.

S: The rules in the class were very clear that when we had guests in the class, that it was an academic learning experience so things like heckling or defamatory statements or language that was not appropriate just was not welcome. And the students at [Virginia] Tech were pretty- I think that may be why some 7:00didn't come because they didn't feel that they could participate in the class without expressing their views. But there was no heckling, no use of derogatory terminology or anything like that.

F: So was sexual orientation or anything in that arena a regular part of your curriculum in Interpersonal Communication?

S: When I taught the class, yes. I did have a section where we dealt with not just LGBTQ issues but the whole idea of cross cultural, intercultural activity and conversation. There were very few students of hispanic background on campus, so I don't know- I don't recall ever having had- actually I guess the LGB- the 8:00GSA were the only people who actually came to class, but we talked about other interactions. I think it was- that was not a topic that was totally prevalent on campus to be quite honest. One or two examples of other cases that showed student responses a little bit after that, probably in the mid-[19]80s, I taught a section of a freshman- sort of an orientation class, it was dealing with how you dealt with various kinds of campus issues all the way from, how do you do your laundry, you know that spray stuff doesn't count, to really major issues in terms of sexuality, appropriate behavior on campus, dating behaviors, and so on. 9:00And in one of the sections I had a young lady who said in the very beginning as we were doing introductions that she was Mormon, LDS, and it was kind of interesting because there was kind of this, hmm, we need to be careful with her, attitude that sort of pervaded. But then when we got to sexuality and we were talking about gay and lesbian bisexual trans issues, she said, oh well my brother is gay, and everyone was like, oh really, how does your family deal with it, well he's my brother and that's just part of it. It was interesting because after she had let that be known then the class really was very different in its 10:00reactions to her. So, I think there you saw a situation where there was a religious background issue that when put in combination with a sexuality issue, attitudes were totally changed when they realized that it wasn't a totally off topic, non-discussable issue with her.

F: That was in the [19]80s?

S: That would be in the [19]80s, yeah.

F: So-- you said that during- in the years leading up to Denim Day and- or the year leading up to, just prior to when you had this panel visit your class, and then after Denim Day you said that you knew some students in the GSA?

S: Um-hm.

F: There's- a lot of folks we've talked to, talk about the GSA in a way that makes me feel it was like- it had some rec- enjoyed some recognition, some 11:00quasi-official status, but was also in the shadows. From the perspective of a faculty member could you speak to the odd nature of that student group?

S: Okay, well the university earlier had refused to even recognize the existence, so in the very early days they met at the Presbyterian Campus Ministries and then, later on, they were accepted or acknowledged by the university but they were still a fairly quiet relationship. In teaching courses like Persuasion and Interpersonal Public Speaking I knew a number of students who were gay or lesbian just in terms of- I guess I related to them. I might go 12:00back- this may be a point to go back and say that I was not out at the time but I was pretty aware I had been, probably since sixth grade, but grew up in an Air Force, Baptist environment where it was totally unacceptable. So I didn't come out myself until around Thanksgiving of probably 1993. And before that time, I knew students and had talked with students and I was fairly comfortable and, in conversation, in just knowing them, though I myself was not saying, yeah I'm gay or a gay man. So I had gotten to know a number of students. Interestingly 13:00enough, it was a student who was one of the presidents of the--at that time it was Lambda Horizons, I think--who in my class had done a presentation where he had described himself as Miss Georgia Peach. He had gone to a party of some sort and had dressed up that way, and we were having lunch one day and up he said, Well Edd you know that you're gay why don't you just deal with it, and I was like, what are you talking about? So, I think there were probably some things in my own behavior that people indicated. Which takes us back to Denim Day because I did wear jeans on Denim Day. I almost always wear jeans, and I had some students who asked me, you know what today is. I said, yeah, and they said, well 14:00you're wearing jeans--or denim they called them jeans--and I said, yeah I wear them every day why shouldn't I wear them today? So there was kind of this, hmm I don't know about this. It was not a new concept to me however because while doing the Ph.D. at Ohio University they had something where every- I think it was every Thursday, they chose a different color and put up signs saying wear blue to show that you support gay lesbian rights. And then maybe the next Thursday it was wear green. So they were very ordinary colors and you'd see students walking through the campus--especially like through the student union--see the sign and look, oh okay. And I suspect many of them went home and changed clothes. So I had had that kind of experience at Ohio which was a 15:00considerably more liberal university than Virginia Tech. So the Denim Day was just the one day. And I kind of like the idea of using jeans or denim rather than a color because that was the ordinary, what everyone wore, type of dress- dressing style.

F: So at Ohio the reaction was very different? Or was it?

S: No, it probably wasn't. Well, people reacted to it and you would- if there would be people that you would see several times during the day, it was obvious that they had gone home and changed clothes just to have the right- to not have the right color, or the wrong color, whichever way you wanted to look at it. But there really wasn't much discussion on campus about it. It wasn't something the newspaper talked about, for instance, as was the case here.

F: So, on Denim Day then, you wore jeans. Were there many faculty who made a statement one way or the other like specifically didn't wear or chose to support?

S: Well, I'd say first of all not many faculty members wore jeans at the time. It was a more- they were more likely to wear khakis, or trousers or- with a shirt and tie or a coat. It was not nearly as informal a dress code. And I would usually wear jeans with a shirt and tie which was appropriate. I didn't know- or have discussion with any other faculty member. But, at that time, I didn't know any other faculty member who was openly gay or lesbian. By that time I had 17:00tenure. And I do know that there woul- later I in discussions there were faculty members who certainly would not mention anything about it or any relationship with students or any other faculty until they had tenure because they there was the the fear--and that's what it was--the fear that it would be a negative aspect of their tenure decision. So they're really- I didn't know any faculty who were. Oh there were some around and later on I said, oh okay I know who you are now.

F: Was that fear founded in any event?

S: No, I think it was a fear founded just by the general social- and the idea that it's not acceptable. I think it also goes along with the idea within 18:00academics, that you shouldn't bring your personal life into the classroom, or in relationship to students. Unfortunately, I think when you're teaching Interpersonal Communications and Persuasion, that doesn't work. And the same thing would be true if you were teaching literature or sociology or psychology. It's hard to- you may be able to discuss chemistry and physics and mathematics without bringing up social standing issues. It's hard to do if you're in the social behavioral sciences or humanities. And I was really admittedly quite surprised the first time I went to a gay men's party. So people were surprised to see me, but I was just as surprised to see them.

F: So people you knew and who knew you?

S: People that I knew and who knew me, yes. It was kinda like, oh you're here, oh I didn't know you would be here. So it was kind of an interesting experience. And admittedly a little frightening at first, too.

F: So you were closeted a long time? For a lot of your life, but also you sort of speak of it in a way of like not really having fully come to terms with it within your own identity-

S: Right

F: Is that the case?

S: Yeah, I think so. When I came out to my wife--we had been married since 1967--her first question to me was, why did you deny it all those times that I asked, and I was like, what, and then she could know, and she could name people 20:00that she felt I had some kind of affinity toward or relationship toward and I was kind of like, wow I didn't, okay. So, obviously I was sending out some signals that I was not perhaps aware of but, as i said, coming from an Air Force family and a very strong religious background in West Texas--I went to a Baptist college as an undergraduate--had I been out then, I would have been kicked out, I'm sure. So, it just wasn't- I did the things I was supposed to do, and in my mind I was dealing with it, and I guess to be quite honest- I guess inviting the GSA to class and knowing the people on campus was a part of my exploration my 21:00looking into- this is how I feel this is who I think I am, but how do I deal with this? It had been obvious to my parents when I was a senior in high school. I didn't date at all in high school, either sex, either gender, either identity, and at one point my father said, why don't you take the car and get a date and go out? I said, well I've got studies to do, or something like that. He said, what are you some kind of queer? I thought, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, there goes my college tuition. So at that point then I became even more withdrawn and internalized and chose to--instead of going to the University of Nebraska--to go 22:00to a small college where I didn't know anyone, 'cause a lot of high school kids would've gone to Nebraska also- went to high school in Omaha. So that was sort of an escape mechanism but it was also interesting that you had to deal with your own internal struggles. I think Denim Day was sort of that for many people. Just the idea that you had to make a decision.

F: To wear it on the outside?

S: To wear it on the outside and if you were wearing denim people might not think, oh he is gay or she is a lesbian, but, oh they-- they identify, okay. In the early 2000s, I taught a course on gays and lesbians in the media as a 23:00Special Topics in Communication. It was interesting because the first day as we went around and introduced ourselves, there were probably--out of the class of 25--maybe 5 students identified as gay or lesbian or who had a family member, a brother, sister, mother or father, aunt, uncle, cousin who was gay or lesbian. At the end of the semester--this is terrible--I should get a toaster for this. That's an old expression do you understand that?

F: A toaster?

S: Yeah.

F: Like...

S: When you brought someone out you got a toaster.

F: Oh, I have never heard of that.

S: Yeah, they were fully cooked, I guess, is what it was. At the end of the course, probably almost a third of the class- a third to half of the class said that they were gay or lesbian. So it was obvious that many of them had taken the course to do some exploration. And I still keep in contact with a few of those students.

F: So in the classroom on Denim Day you're wearing denim. What's the class like?

S: I don't recall anyone asking any questions.

F: Is anyone in the class wearing denim?

S: I don't remember. I guess I wasn't paying that much attention to it. One thing that did- one of the strange things--and I know I didn't create this, I've talked with at least one other person about it--there were some students who wore toothbrushes around their neck.

F: We've heard that yeah.

S: Okay have you heard that?

F: Yeah.

S: I'm not sure, were they just going to brush away the bad stuff or what, but it was kind of ridiculous to walk around campus--and there weren't a lot of them. I'm not sure exactly which religious group it was. I've got an idea, but- to see students wearing toothbrushes around their neck, sort of an anti-statement. I don't remember if there was anyone in class who had a toothbrush around their neck that day. Students would probably be more aware of that than I was.

F: Now you say you knew some folks in the GSA. Did you know them well enough to have a sense of any of the planning of either awareness week or-

S: No, I did not. I was not I was not aware of that. I just knew that it was coming. Of course they had announced it.

F: Because of the regular-

S: Yeah, the regular announcements. In the newspaper, around campus, posters, and all. But, I really was not really aware, cognizant, of exactly what the 26:00planning was like and who was doing it.

F: So, classes you were teaching at the time were Persuasion-

S: Um-hm.

F: Which- is that a class that's still taught? Under that name?

S: I'm sure it is. But it's probably taught very differently.

F: And when you had Nancy visit the Persuasion class, it was to speak about Denim Day as an attempt at persuasion, or what was the- some of the things behind that?

S: Yeah, the emphasis would have been more- would have more elements of what today we would talk about as public relations. So, if you're planning a persuasive campaign or persuasion event, how do you go about it? How do you orchestrate it? This would come out of my own background of when I was doing my 27:00masters at Northwestern. This was in [19]66, [19]67, in that era. An era of a great deal of social movements. And there in Chicago we had a lot of guest speakers who were writing manuals, how do you occupy a building, how do you-- so there was a lot of this movement orientation and persuasion. How do you get people to accept or to change attitudes, and hopefully behaviors, and that would be the part of the course that it was from. That it was for.

[cut in video]

F: So let's stay with the Persuasion class for a little bit. Now, you had said that when GSA visited your Interpersonal Communication class, it was at your behest because of the value you saw in that conversation. Is it the same with 28:00bringing Nancy into Persuasion after Denim Day?

S: Yeah, oh yes.

F: You- that you sought her out?

S: I've always tried to bring people in and, if possible students, who were involved with something related to the course because that takes it out of just the theory and puts it into people actually do these things, and this is how they do them, and this is the result, this is what they see. So there's certainly an academic lecture side but I think you need to have some, this is the real world, as well, and it's not- it carries over from...

F: You said you were only aware of Denim Day through the way it was publicly publicised right?

S: Right.

F: I guess that's redundant, but the way it was publicised, so when Nancy came to the class, did she talk about some of the strategic thinking that went into 29:00the planning and did that change at all the way you thought about, or enlighten you as to the motivation behind it? So, I'm interested in what your reaction to what she had to say- your reaction to it and your observations of your class's reaction.

S: She had a very good presentation. I think like--the experience I mentioned earlier with Ohio University and the different colors on Thursdays--I had some idea at least of some of the motivation behind it and some of the- But Virginia Tech was a very different environment and I think getting her perspective is- as a primary organizer- and I'm sure that Nancy as well as some of the other people who were involved can give you more sense of that, but I don't remember anything she said specifically. The class response was very different from Interpersonal in that I think they took it very seriously because it was something they had 30:00just seen, because it was right there at the time of Denim Day. So it wasn't like coming out of thin air. They had been on campus they had made a decision whether to- they wore or did not wear. They had made a decision to respond in some way. So her presentation would would say to them, go back and think about why did you do what you did, what influenced you to do it, how did you respond when you saw the poster, when you heard that this was going to happen. So there were questions, and I don't recall any real strong negative response or animosity in that class like I did in the Interpersonal.

F: So when you say they took it seriously do you mean that they opened 31:00themselves up to that the self reflection that Nancy invited them to indulge in?

S: I think they did because she was talking about some of the same things that we had been talking about in class and reading about in the textbook. When you talk about the process of creating a persuasive movement or a persuasive event and they had followed it pretty well they had done a good job in terms of publicity, getting word out, as I think the newspaper article at the time suggested the university got lots of responses, unsolicited responses maybe, so that it made news.

F: Yeah.

S: It was covered by the media, which of course is one of the things you want to 32:00do for a successful social movement, so I think they did an exceptional job with a really tough topic. As a group that was not totally accepted, maybe not even yet to the margins of acceptability.

F: So bringing Nancy into the class, wearing jeans were you swept up in the aftermath at all? Did anyone approach you to interview you or ask you why are you in ally of theirs?

S: Yeah, I had some students, one student in particular, I think, she was actually doing an independent study with me that semester who came out of a Baptist background, and we had some discussion about it. I had some other 33:00students who had asked, and I would simply- I don't actually remember exactly what I said, but my guess is I said well I wear jeans all the time, so what's the problem?

F: Yeah.

S: In my time at [Virginia] Tech I've only had one student who really reacted negatively when they discovered that I was gay, and that was a student who had me in class and was doing an independent study and this was when the safe zones were first introduced on campus, and I had a safe zone sticker on my office door and this student came out of a very conservative religious background and she said, why do you have that sticker on your door?, and I said, well why shouldn't I? I accept and support all people. She said, but these are gays and lesbians. I 34:00said, yeah. She said, well as a Christian you can't do that, and I said, well yes I can, and fortunately it was near the end of the semester, and she finished her independent study. But she also avoided me for the rest of the time that she was a student in our department and had been very friendly and very outgoing before so there was that very clear demarcation point, oops no longer can I do that.

F: So I mean come out in [19]92 that's significant- much later right?

S: Oh yes.

F: Yeah, but still though you must have a sense of the campus community, and how 35:00it has evolved?

S: Oh yeah.

F: And when you came out versus Denim Day, can you speak to the difference in the community and maybe how safe you felt then versus how unsafe you may have felt in [19]79 had you pondered such a move?

S: I don't know that I have ever really felt terribly unsafe. There was one time that a friend who was not gay who was back visiting, we had been to China Inn for dinner I guess and when we went out and hugged each other to say goodbye and someone driving by said, queer, or, faggot, or something I can't remember what 36:00they said but I was kinda like, whoa what is this? It was interesting because it was a totally unsexual, non-sexual experience and that's the only time that I've ever had anyone say anything. Part of my coming out was also that I was becoming department head or acting department head, and I didn't want to go into that position with anything that could be used, so I came out to the faculty I said, I just want you to be aware, and I had no negative reactions, in fact, I had several very positive responses from faculty in my department and then the year 37:00that Dean DePauw came to campus and her partner came to campus and was given a position in the English department I was president of the faculty senate which also meant that I was on the Board of Visitors as the faculty representative. And that was the year that they decided to take the sexual orientation statement out of the university and basically tried to deny Shelly of her position. That was a really hard year.

F: Do you remember what year that was?

S: It would've been [19]73, not [19]73 sorry, 2003. Yeah, right. 2003 I think.

F: Yeah.

S: So, I came out to the Board of Visitors or actually to the university community in a very public meeting where the whole issue was being discussed, and at the end of that year it was rescinded so that was a really terrible year, but we had a positive outcome through all the hell it went through. As I say in terms of my teaching, I talk about all sorts of social issues, so I'm going to talk international communications which I've taught totally since I retired. After retiring I taught for about seven more years. We talk about things like gay and lesbian issues as well as racial language issues, so it's a part of that 39:00whole- and its still there. Africa is right now going through some pretty tough times in terms of whether or not gay and lesbians can be actually imprisoned in Uganda and some other countries. So I've never hesitated to bring it into the classroom situation, and I think that helps because the more that it's a part of ordinary life- teaching a course on the media and gay and lesbian issues. I mean, television has done so much. There's a lot of things I'll tell you I don't like but Ellen DeGeneres. It was also mentioned way back in the old days with 40:00Archie Bunker when he discovered a guy at his local bar was gay, and it was like, oh my gosh. That was the unspoken, and now it's so interesting when your watching an advertisement. You see two men and two women, or a black person and a white person, or just and it's kinda like, oh you don't think about it anymore. HGTV [Home and Garden Television] is wonderful, but that's a change that has happened probably in the last decade, and I think the university has dealt with it. Yeah, I know a lot of the students who really did not continue to have a relationship with the university because they were really hurt. I don't think that's the case anymore.

F: You mean from [19]79?

S: Yeah.

F: Yeah.

S: And yeah, the [19]72 to mid-[19]80s maybe even. The university has changed. 41:00There are still pockets, but that's always going to be there. I think Jeff Mann in English taught the first course. He taught a gay and lesbian literature course. I know he taught it two or three times, and then I taught the gay and lesbians in the media, and then it was a while before anything else was taught, but now I think there certainly some of the courses in sociology, gender studies the topic is very free and flexible. I think it's not just the university where these changes have taken place. One of the most obstinate institutions in terms of sexuality issues is churches. But Blacksburg has an amazing number of 42:00churches that are totally open and affirming. The Methodist just fail to do it. Glade Church, the Unitarian Universalist, the Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Episcopal Church are all very open and accepting. A lot of students don't go because I think they have been hurt by the church, but that certainly was not true in [19]79. So the university and the rest of the community has certainly changed, and it's a very different world.

F: Do you remain religious? You were raised religious. Does that mean it followed you?

S: Yeah, we go to Glade Church which is a United Church of Christ. Which is 43:00probably the first denomination to ordain a gay or lesbian minister, and the first church to declare marriage equality. It's a very liberal protestant denomination, and I would guess that probably about a third of our congregation is gay or lesbian. So we have families, same sex families, mixed families, all sorts of families, and I think that's true for several of the other churches in the area. I know that's certainly true for the Unitarian Universalist.

F: Mhm. Do you think that's unique here or somewhat?

S: I think it may be more obvious here because we're a smaller community, but 44:00all of those- all the churches I've mentioned, the United Church of Christ, which is very different from Churches of Christ. It's the liberal congregationalist type, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Episcopal Church have all made very clear statements in gays and lesbians, transexual, bisexual, transgender can be in the ministry and all of that and can be married in in the church. I guess the United Methodist Church right now is the only major denomination that has just recently decided that it doesn't hold, and that's gonna be a problem for them.

F: Yeah. Did you ever have a dissonance between your spirituality and your sexuality?

S: Yeah, it's something you had to deal with. That's part of that whole struggle that I went through, and I guess finally I came to the conclusion after reading- we actually hadn't planned to talk about religion here, but I guess we are. After reading the Gospel several times I realized Jesus never said a word about this. All he talked about was the poor, the outcast, the marginal, and the only people he ever condemned were the religious, and the wealthy, and the socially elite. Must be something here. I think I resolve this. When I came out to my wife I actually read her a poem by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor/theologian who was executed by the Nazis. I did my masters thesis on him, 46:00and he wrote a poem saying, Who Am I? where he questions how everyone asks the question or has a view of him that he doesn't totally understand, but in the end it comes back, Who Am I, you know God? That's sort of the conclusion, that I can be all sorts of things to all sorts of people. I think it's historically been an issue for many churches, but I think certainly the more progressive churches it's not an issue anymore.

F: Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about your Gay and Lesbians in the Media class?

S: Sure.

F: So when did you start teaching that? Or you taught it once?

S: I just taught it one time. And it was not taught again. It was taught as a special topics course, and I had hoped to turn it into a regular course, but the curriculum committee didn't see it that way.

F: Ah, what was the issue?

S: It just came down we didn't teach specialized courses like that as a regular part of the curriculum.

F: Did you have a a template that you followed? Had you observed that course being taught somewhere or you just...

S: No, no totally. There were a number of publications that had come out- textbooks that were primarily readings, and I did use one of those, which is very out of date now. But we primarily went through, and it was sort of a combination course because we were talking about gender issues as well, sort of where we began. Actually, the first day we looked at terminology, and I had a 48:00whole list of terms, and some of them were pretty obvious things like, dyke, or fag, but then I got to one- after going through this whole list of different terms and talking about how they were used, and we came to the term, breeders. Do you know what a breeder is?

F: No, I guess not.

S: It's straight people.

F: Okay.

S: They breed, sorta like dogs and cats and cows, so it was sort of like- they are also terms used for the other side. This sort of in and out experience, so just going through those terms was a very interesting experience. For many of the people it was like, oh you're serious, oh my gosh, but then we did talk 49:00about things like primarily the media, so we did advertising, we did television, we did film, didn't really do much with newspapers, but primarily radio- not radio, television and film were the two focus points and some advertising and just looked at some of the history. Certainly that was important, and a lot of the students really didn't know that much about the history and then sort of the current things.

F: So this must have been before the age of the types of commercial- the age of diversity that you were referencing earlier?

S: Oh yes, oh yes definitely definately. Most of the advertising at that time- I did an encyclopedia article on gay and lesbian advertising, and most of the advertising was done in gay and lesbian publications for gay and lesbians, so 50:00you didn't see- in the straight media you didn't see advertising that would be gay and lesbian, but if you were reading gay and lesbian literature then the beer companies, the cologne companies, and the every other kind of company was putting ads in that featured gay and lesbian people in the ads. Way before we got where we are right now. This is before HGTV and before the internet really became a major-- social media.

F: So was it a class full of gay and lesbian students do you think?

S: No, all sorts. Some people who were just interested.

F: What's your sense of their reaction, and did they make comments in the--the word's escaping me--evaluations that they put in at the end? I mean, how did they take to the class?

S: It was very positive. I think the one thing that happened in that class, as I said earlier, some of the people were LGBT- there was no one in the class who was trans so LGBT, or they had a parent or a relative or a friend, and they were 52:00willing to take the course, I guess, to understand better, and some were doing their own self exploration. I think the most important thing was that we were talking, and by talking and sharing ideas and sharing perspectives you begin to realize, oh they're like me. We're the same. We all have our own individual, unique characteristics, but we also share the same basic human nature and characteristic. I think just some of the reading and some of the history was certainly important, but it was more the talking and sharing of ideas and 53:00personal relations that was very effective. Actually, I'm just trying to think. You'll probably want to edit this out cause my mind suddenly went totally blank.

F: Well the the folks we've spoken to in the GSA have talked about the way that organization at that time had a social component, but it was also focused on sort of political motivation? Gay rights, right? And also education which is related and that education often takes the form that you've described a couple of times now of just sort of forcing the realization, oh they're just like us 54:00they're regular people. It seems like- well let me ask you instead of assuming that it seems like. When you teach a class like Gay and Lesbian in the Media or bring that topic into a into the curriculum of another class is there a kind of activist motivation behind that in terms of like that educational confrontation to break down the wall?

S: You mean on my part?

F: Yeah, on your part.

S: Yeah, but no more than if I bring up, like in International Communication, no more than if I bring up questions of freedom of the press or economic issues. It's just that it's a part of the reality we have to deal with in terms of international Communication or persuasion or whatever else. Certainly with 55:00visual media now if I were teaching, looking at the differences in advertising that becomes important, so it's just a part, in my opinion, a part of the curriculum. Certainly in the social behavioral sciences, the humanities- it should be a part of every course because it is part of life and reality and not just a segmented stuck out there some place experience.

F: We're coming down to the end of another.

S:Yeah.

F: But we could certainly continue. Maybe, Slade- do you have something you feel is left out or is there something, Edd, that you would like to touch on that we haven't gotten to?

[End of Interview]