Harvard University will endow a visiting professorship in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies, a position that, it believes, will be the first endowed, named chair in the subject at an American college.The visiting professorship was made possible by a gift of $1.5 million from the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus...With the gift, Harvard said it would regularly invite "eminent scholars studying issues related to sexuality or sexual minorities" to teach on campus for one semester, according to a draft of a university press release.
The chair is being named for F.O. Matthiessen, a Harvard scholar and literary critic who "stands out as an unusual example of a gay man who lived his sexuality as an 'open secret' in the mid-twentieth century," according to the release.
While the first university program in gay and lesbian studies was started in 1986 at City University of New York (CUNY), it's an important symbolic recognition of the importance of LGBT studies to the field of academia.
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ACTUALLY, I have to point out that the first was actually Audre Lorde at the University of Louisville. In Kentucky. At a state school.
Don't believe me?
http://fatlip.leoweekly.com/2009/06/04/u-of-l-trumps-harvard-in-lgbt-studies/
Sorry, Harvard. I can't help but gloat.