Gay professors say BC lags in accepting their lifestyles

A panel of gay faculty members at a forum at Boston College last night said although the university sponsored the event -- the first of its kind at the school -- members of the community have a long way to go before overcoming the school's deeply rooted religious tradition.

A crowd of about 100 supporters, friends and interested students stood in a small room in the college's Gasson building to listen as members of the Lesbian and Gay Faculty, Staff and Administrators Association shared their experiences as gay employees of the Catholic-affiliated institution.

Though it has recently been recognized for accepting increasingly diverse viewpoints, BC's affiliation with the Catholic Church, which officially condemns homosexuality, often puts the institution at odds with gays and lesbians on campus and has prompted past efforts by the university to discourage or prohibit gay-themed organizations, they said.

Panelist Michael Resler, a German professor who has taught at the college for three decades, said the forum last night would have been unimaginable when he began working at the Jesuit school.

"If you can compartmentalize it, it has to be, 'This is where I work and where I earn my pay, and this is home, where my life is,'" he said. "In the late '70s, it was clearly, 'Don't ask,' and absolutely, 'Don't tell.'"

Education professor David Scanlon said he had trouble finding other openly gay colleagues when he became a BC faculty member 10 years ago.

"There's nothing there -- a lack of information," Scanlon said. "You have to pay a price, one way or another, for being gay on this campus."

Accounting professor Theresa Hammond, who has taught at BC for 17 years, said the university is still bound by old ways, citing a December 2005 incident in which BC administrators canceled a student-organized Gay-Lesbian dance.

"You think you belong, but then things like that happen," Hammond said. "It's a mixed place."

Hammond said she remembers arriving at BC in 1990 and fruitlessly asking fellow faculty members if they were gay or knew gay colleagues. In her search, she even left a note on a car in a staff parking garage with a pink triangle bumper sticker -- a symbol of the gay community -- in hopes of meeting the car's owner.

For other professors, the recent emergence of such events like last night's attracted them to BC.

"If this group didn't exist, I wouldn't have applied," said theater professor Ruth Conrad, who is teaching her first year at BC and said she was surprised at the large turnout.

"It's incredible," she said. "It's about strength in numbers. It was fantastic."

Yesterday's event marked the first time any such discussion has occurred under university sponsorship, and though many attended, several panelists said they doubt little will change in the attitude toward gays at the university level.

Event organizer and associate Italian professor Franco Mormando said the discussion is a step to increase recognition on campus.

"Faculty members are moving forward and refuse to be silent and invisible," he said.