UPenn LGBT Center turns 25
By Larry Nichols
PGN Staff Writer
© 2007 Philadelphia Gay News

25 YEARS YOUNG: Bob Schoenberg, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center, spoke at an open house celebrating the center’s 25th anniversary on Sept. 20. Throughout the year, the center will host several more events to mark the occasion. Photo: Matt Waller

The University of Pennsylvania’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center, 3907 Spruce St., marked the start of its 25th year with an open house Sept. 20 at the center’s new lounge.

More than 125 students and faculty attended the celebration to honor one of nation’s oldest and most active LGBT centers and its director, Robert Schoenberg.

“When I was hired to do this work in 1982, I was only the second or maybe third person in the country who had been hired to be a professional staff member on a college campus serving this constituency.” Schoenberg said. “The first was at the University of Michigan.”

Penn’s LGBT Center provides a safe space for sexual and gender minorities on campus and hosts workshops and discussions as well as an extensive library of GLBT books, videos and periodicals available to any member of the university.

Schoenberg, who is openly gay, has seen the center grow and thrive over the last 25 years from its humble beginnings.

“What started as a two-day-a-week part-time position for me while I was working on my dissertation at Penn evolved over the next nine or 10 years into a full-time position and to a center with three full-time staff,” he said. “Just over five years ago, we moved to our present home in the Carriage House, which the university designated for our purposes and we raised the funds to renovate.”

Schoenberg pointed out that, while the LGBT Center at Penn has grown in its time, finding resources like it on other college campuses, even today, are rare.

“Not only were there not many of them then, but there are not many now,” he said. “I think Swarthmore has what they call an intercultural center, which serves Asian-American, Latino and LGBT students. They have a separate African-American center. The next closest institution that has a fully funded and staffed center is Princeton, and that’s a relatively recent development over the last couple years.”

Schoenberg said that open house was just the beginning of the center’s milestone celebration.

“There are going to be a number of programs and events throughout the year that’s going to include an event for alumni on homecoming weekend Oct. 20. We’re going to have a huge gala dinner that will be the upscale celebration of the occasion March 29 during the annual QPenn week on the Penn campus, which is a week of awareness, education, celebration, etc. Then we’ll close the year the second weekend in May during the alumni weekend.”

Schoenberg said that while he doesn’t have definite figures, the college population that utilizes the center is considerable.

“There’s no membership in the sense that we’re not an organization or a club. We’re a university resource center. Certainly the number of students, faculty and alumni that we serve has grown enormously. Back in the beginning in 1982, when I had a 60-square-foot office in Houston Hall, the efforts were very much what you would expect at the beginning of such an operation. They were developing. Now we estimate that we have about 3,500-4,000 visits to the center every year. It’s not possible to track every visit. So the statistics are somewhat estimated.”

Schoenberg said the center is there for more than just college GLBT groups.

“Apart from people who come to take advantage of the events and services, the building can also be used by other organizations, both campus and community groups. We’d like to think that groups on campus that are not specifically LGBT can learn something just by being in this space.”

For more information, visit www.vpul.upenn.edu/lgbtc.

Larry Nichols can be reached at larry@epgn.com.