N.J. university to offer GLBTQ minor
By Larry Nichols
PGN Staff Writer
© 2007 Philadelphia Gay News

New Jersey’s Montclair State University, the state’s second-largest school, recently established an undergraduate minor in gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer studies.

The GLBTQ studies minor, which began in this semester, expands upon existing coursework relating to gender and sexuality, and explores how these issues shape laws, customs and institutions in areas such as marriage, adoption, immigration, business practices, education policy, human rights and interpersonal relations.

“We looked at the existing courses that have been on the books at Montclair State and decided that we would pull those together so that there would be a meaningful sense of why these individual courses are being offered so that would work into the minor,” said Sally McWilliams, director of the university’s women’s studies program.

Students can earn the 18-credit GLBTQ minor by taking approved electives across a number of departments, including sociology, psychology, women’s studies, humanities, health and law. A new core class for the minor, “Introduction to Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Studies (GLQS200),” will be taught for the first time this spring.

The organizers of the program said there is a definite demand for the minor among the students.

“We have six students that have declared the minor already,” said Raul Galoppe, GLBTQ studies program coordinator. “The first course, GLQS200, the core course which is open for any student that wants to take it, has a cap of 35 students. We got all 35 students [registered] in one week.”

“Once students have taken that intro course, they’ll be better positioned to think about signing up for the minor,” McWilliams added.

McWilliams, an out lesbian, said that other departments will contribute classes to the minor in the future.

“Since it’s an interdisciplinary minor, we’ll be drawing from other classes from other departments besides women’s studies,” she said. “I’ve talked to two departments that are really anxious to be part of the program, so they’re working on new courses from within their discipline to be in the minor. Those are anthropology and justice studies.”

Galoppe, who is also gay, is developing a course in queer cinema to be offered in future semesters.

With this program, Montclair State University joins a small number of colleges and universities across the country that offer formal academic programs in GLBTQ studies. McWilliams said that Montclair’s program is one of only a couple of its kind that can be found locally.

“The only other one we’re aware of is the critical sexualities minor at Rutgers in New Brunswick,” she said. “Other institutions in the area have individual courses or they might have concentrations within a major but, as far as we know, we’re the only other state university that has a full-fledged minor.”

“Nationwide, I was doing some research and I found around 30 or 35,” Galoppe added. “It was minors or courses. Not like a concentration. Sometimes women’s studies might offer a GLBTQ track, but in our case, GLBTQ is going to be their minor.”

For more information about Montclair State University’s GLBTQ minor program, visit http://chss.montclair.edu/ws/GLBTQ.html.

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