Almost a decade ago, before accepting the position of department head, I came out to my faculty colleagues who did not already know about my sexual orientation. More recently, before serving as president of our university's Faculty Senate, I again was clear about my sexual orientation, especially since that office carried with it being a member of the Board of Visitors, the Virginia name for the governing body of state colleges and universities. Currently, I am one of about twenty multicultural fellows at Virginia Tech, and perhaps seven of us are part of the campus LGBT community.
My department is very supportive of diversity, We have several LGBT people on our faculty, and in every way their partners are treated exactly like a spouse or opposite-sex partner is treated. Some of us are active in our campus LGBT caucus for faculty, staff and graduate students, as well as the campus SafeZone program for LGBT students.
Several years ago I taught a one-semester topic courses called "Gays and Lesbians in the Media," but I want to focus my comments here on two undergraduate courses that I teach.
Each semester on the syllabus for each course I teach is the following simple statement: “Virginia Tech and communication professional organizations recognize the need to work comfortably and effectively in a diverse and interdependent global community. This course assumes a diverse student body and respects differences.” I also refer to the “Principles of Diversity” adopted by the University several years ago that includes the principle:
"We reject all forms of prejudice and discrimination, including those based on age, color, disability, gender, national origin, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation [emphasis added], and veteran status. We take individual and collective responsibility for helping to eliminate bias and discrimination and for increasing our own understanding of these issues through education, training, and interaction with others."
How then do I integrate this philosophy into my teaching? That depends on the course.
"Visual Media" is one of our department's sophomore courses that provides the foundation for an emphasis in print and broadcast journalism. The course includes, among other topics, an introduction to graphic design and layout, photography, and web design, so there are many opportunities to use visual examples to illustrate the principles being taught. For visual examples, I often use advertisements and commercials collected from a wide range of magazines including LGBT publications such as The Advocate, Genre, Out and similar magazines. I also use online sources such as The Commercial Closet” I can almost guarantee that a student will “see” herself or himself in at least one example during the semester, and I have been personally rewarded that students will thank me for examples that include various ethnic groups, people with disabilities and LGBT people.
"International Communication," a senior-level course that is used to fulfill requirements by majors with an emphasis in print and broadcast journalism as well as public relations and media theory, presents more of a challenge. LGBT topics and issues are not as easy to include, but as we discuss issues of freedom of communication in a global context, I often introduce cultural differences like the treatment of homosexuals. For example, when discussing the requirements made of new nations joining the EU, issues of human rights — including homosexuals along with Roma and other marginalized groups — provide a natural forum for discusssion. Each unit in the course includes a case study. HIV/AIDS is the case study for a unit focusing on the role of NGOs in health and environment issues. While HIV/AIDS is much more than an LGBT issue, it is almost impossible to discuss the topic without reference to the treatment of the LGBT community in the news coverage of the global epidemic.
In conclusion, I cannot conceive of teaching a course that does not include reference to LGBT issues as a part of a broader focus on diversity. At the same time, I would never emphasize LGBT issues except as more than only one aspect of diversity.
