Mary Larkin, Glenna Frank-Miller, Kate Mehuron and Dennis O'Grady, Greg Peoples,
Interviewer
Matt Jones, Finn Vincent-Fix, and Kat Hacanyan
Exact Date
2024
Subject
EMU LGBT Resource Center, EMU Archives, EMU Center for Oral History Research, LGBTRC, LGBT, student orgs, student center, campus life, campus community, ally-ship, Ypsilanti, Ypsi community, LGBT community,
Copyright to the audio resource and its transcript is held by the content creator, author, artist or other entity, and is provided here for educational purposes only. It may not be reproduced or distributed in any other format without written permission of the copyright owner, Eastern Michigan University Archives (lib_archives@emich.edu).
Kate Mehuron, professor of History and Philosophy and the Department of Women's and Gender Studies, and Dennis O'Grady, professor with the Departments of Communication, Media, and Theater Arts and Women's and Gender Studies, were both instrumental in the planning and implementation of the EMU LGBT Resource Center. Acting as a vital connection between faculty, students, and administration, Mehuron and O'Grady describe working with other faculty like Kathleen Russell to win support for the center. They also describe some of the pushback to the center amongst EMU faculty.
As a university administrator of over 40 years at EMU, Gregory Peoples devoted himself to bettering the college experiences of marginalized students,. In 1994, Peoples helped establish the LGBT Resource Center at EMU, and in this interview, he describes the challenges both to himself and from the university in forming this crucial campus support center.
In her 40 years of service to EMU, Glenna Frank-Miller has served in many crucial capacities including Student Affairs, Campus Life, Diversity and Community Involvement, Alumni Engagement, Career Services and more. She also co-chaired the planning and constrcution of the EMu Student Center. Involved in many levels at EMU, Frank-Miller here describes the need for, and implementation of, the EMU LGBT Resource Center. She describes the various threads that led to the decision to create the center, and describes the reaction on campus to its opening.
