2008 Woodie Awards
Gay lecture inspires, brings back memories of college experience
Issue date: 4/15/05 Section: Rocket Letters
To the Editor:
I was delighted to see my online edition of The Rocket from April 8. Two speakers, Bertolino and Liepold, spoke of their experiences of "being gay."
I am a 1971 graduate, and am also gay/lesbian. I thought you may like to hear of experiences from 35 years ago on SRU (Then called Slippery Rock State College). I think it was 1970, and a woman from Philadelphia came to our campus to speak. I remember seeing flyers about a "homosexual speaker"- this was certainly different! At this time, I was not "out"- I was not even "in the closet." I was just oblivious to my feelings.
This was an interesting time on college campuses: the Vietnam war, "hippies", civil rights, black liberation and then along came "gay rights." Slippery Rock was a part of all of those movements, but never quickly enough for some of us.
But this speaker, who was homosexual and actually said this out loud, with no apology, was very different for SRSC. A friend and I attended the presentation out of curiosity, and I recall that it was well received. She spoke of many things, but I remember that we thought it was very funny when she said that within five years there would be gay dances on campus.
While it would still be three years before I admitted to myself that I, too, was gay, this speaker was an inspiration for me. I thank Slippery Rock for helping me to mature - in many ways - as our school still does for countless others, in many different ways. College is a time to expand our worlds, allow different ideas to enter our lives and free us. It certainly did that for me.
Colette Satler
Class of '71
I was delighted to see my online edition of The Rocket from April 8. Two speakers, Bertolino and Liepold, spoke of their experiences of "being gay."
I am a 1971 graduate, and am also gay/lesbian. I thought you may like to hear of experiences from 35 years ago on SRU (Then called Slippery Rock State College). I think it was 1970, and a woman from Philadelphia came to our campus to speak. I remember seeing flyers about a "homosexual speaker"- this was certainly different! At this time, I was not "out"- I was not even "in the closet." I was just oblivious to my feelings.
This was an interesting time on college campuses: the Vietnam war, "hippies", civil rights, black liberation and then along came "gay rights." Slippery Rock was a part of all of those movements, but never quickly enough for some of us.
But this speaker, who was homosexual and actually said this out loud, with no apology, was very different for SRSC. A friend and I attended the presentation out of curiosity, and I recall that it was well received. She spoke of many things, but I remember that we thought it was very funny when she said that within five years there would be gay dances on campus.
While it would still be three years before I admitted to myself that I, too, was gay, this speaker was an inspiration for me. I thank Slippery Rock for helping me to mature - in many ways - as our school still does for countless others, in many different ways. College is a time to expand our worlds, allow different ideas to enter our lives and free us. It certainly did that for me.
Colette Satler
Class of '71
