First College Department of Gay and Lesbian Studies Thriving

Jack Collins still remembers a college literature class 20 years ago in which the instructor would not talk about a famous writer’s homoerotic poems.

Collins, who is gay, didn’t think he could, either.

“The professor said, ‘These are obscure--let’s move on.’ I thought, ‘If I say what I think is going on, A, everyone is going to think I’m gay, and B, the professor is going to say I’m wrong,” Collins recalled.

“It was typical of my education.”

Collins, hoping to end such “great silences,” now heads the nation’s first college or university department devoted to gay and lesbian studies.

The program at City College of San Francisco, the biggest two-year institution in the nation, is attracting growing numbers of gay and straight students with classes in anthropology, film, literature and other subjects--all exploring cultural and social aspects of homosexuality.

And it is drawing the interest of scholars throughout the nation who hope the Department of Gay and Lesbian Studies will set an example for other schools.

“I’m really excited by it,” said Wayne Dynes, a professor of art history at Hunter College in New York and editor of “The Encyclopedia of Homosexuality.”

“Someone has to try it to see how it works. . . . If this becomes the model for future development, it becomes a landmark,” he said.

Although an American first, City College’s 2-year-old program is part of a growing movement to reach out to gay and straight students and end decades of indifferent or hostile academic silence. More and more colleges are offering similar classes.

But Collins, other gay scholars and students believe a separate department is even better. They say the status gives gay studies a strong identity, helps it influence other departments and makes gay men and women the initiators of discussion rather than its object.

“For me, it’s about what I was denied in all the literature I read in high school and college up until now,” said Kevin Davis, 25, who has taken several classes in the department.

Davis was delighted when, in a department literature course, he finally heard discussion about the homosexual element in Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd.”

“I was so glad because I could say, ‘Oh wow--a homosexual in the last century.’ Nobody would tell me that before.”

The program grew from the popularity of courses dealing with homosexuality, starting with a literature class offered every term since 1972. The course on homosexuality in film attracted 120 applicants when it debuted in 1988.

“At that point I think the college realized there was the interest in gay and lesbian issues they hadn’t reached before,” Collins said.

Collins, however, was surprised by the response to the department, which drew 250 students in 1989-90, the first year of its existence. It now boasts 500 students. The number of courses is growing, with 10 being offered next fall.

“From the first, every single class was filled. They had overfill. So we asked for more classes and they gave us more,” said Kitaka Gara, 23, former president of the college’s Gay and Lesbian Alliance.

Homosexual students--an estimated 11% of City College’s 72,000 enrollment--are the majority in most classes, but many students are straight.

Half the students in the film course are heterosexual.

“Which is what we want. We hope the courses will have appeal to everybody,” Collins said. “We’re not ghettoized at all, and we don’t want to be.”

Department classes meet the school’s three-unit minority studies requirement for an associate’s degree.

Collins, 42, who has degrees in comparative literature from Stanford and medieval studies from Columbia, hopes to offer as many as 20 classes. Courses are now offered in anthropology, English, film, history, health, drama and interdepartmental studies. Collins envisions others in religion, sociology, psychology, broadcasting and humanities.

San Francisco’s large gay population and tolerant atmosphere may be an important reason for the department’s success, but Collins also credits the college’s administration.

“I met with nothing but enthusiasm and good vibes,” Collins said. “It’s incredible. I was expecting support, but I have enthusiastic support. They’ve been very happy about it.” City College’s board is elected, making members sensitive to public demand, he added.

City College’s setting an example is appropriate, given the number of homosexual students and the overall diversity of the student body, said Chancellor Evan Dobelle.

“It is a very good feeling for us when students tell us City College is the first time in an academic setting they feel they were understood and respected--that they were accepted for what they were,” he said.