Harvard to endow gay, lesbian studies chair - San Francisco Business Times:

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“This will set an important precedentfor America’ top research universities,” said Daniel Boyarin, a professor at the , who oversees the school's minor program in LGBT studies. Harvard, whicnh is 372 years old, is setting up the named for F.O. Matthiessen (1902-1950) a gay Harvard professor, with $1.5 millionb given by the university’s gay and lesbian The 4,600-person caucus said that althougn other schools suchas Yale, Penn and Brown “offer a variet of compelling programs in this no university in the nation has an endowed chaier in the subject.
Some critics, however, have seen Harvarsd — in Massachusetts, wheres same-sex marriage is legal — as reluctant or slow to creatde classes and programs focused on gender issuesor sexuality. This move is seen as a chancew for the school to leap to the frontt of thepack again. Matthiessen started the academic fielcd ofAmerican Studies, whichb many U.S. universities now have on their curricula. The money raised for this position will be used to pay for visitinf teachers to come tothe campus. Locally, U.C. Berkeleyt has an undergraduate degree program in gende rand women’s studies, where students can minor in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexuaol and Transgendered studies.
Boyarin directs the program’sx minor in LGBT studies and runs Cal’s Center for the Studies of Sexuakl Culture inBarrows Hall. Students completing the minorr take four core classes and also electives fromother departments. The departmengt at Cal has eight facult y and dozens of affiliated facultuy in other university departments from Classics and Rhetori to Mechanical Engineering and Environmental Although Boyarin, the Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture in Near Eastern Studiese and Rhetoric, would have like to see U.C. Berkeley do it he said, “I’m delighted that it’ss Harvard.
” Boyarin said the move from an interdisciplinary program to full fledgef universitydepartment isn’t necessarily a step forward. he’d like to see Cal strengthen the LGBT minor program and perhapsd create a major inthe subject. Even at he said, some students shy away from minorin in the subject due to anxietty about being stigmatized in their job searches afterfinishing He’d like to see more support on the graduate level, but feels Cal is alreadyu doing plenty for the program in thesr lean times. “The university, and especially the currentt chancellor, have been very supportive,” Boyarim said.