The History of LGBT Studies at Maryland

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Certificate Program was approved by the Maryland Higher Education Commission and endorsed by the University's Board of Regents in Spring 2002. That milestone is merely the latest evidence of the University's long-standing commitment to achieving diversity in both the demographic as well as the educational sense of the word.

The LGBT Studies Program, like the programs and departments in African-American Studies, Asian American Studies, Jewish Studies, Latin-American Studies, and Women's Studies that preceded it, is part of the institution's broad and deep effort to transform curricula to reflect new developments in multicultural scholarship and to provide students with a set of educational experiences that convey some sense of the diversity of human cultures. The task of LGBT Studies is to highlight sex and gender variation as aspects of the diversity of the University community and of the knowledge generated by our faculty and students.

Courses with significant LGBT content have been taught at Maryland since the mid-1970s, when Professor Frederick Suppe first offered "Homosexuality and Morality," which eventually evolved into "Gay and Lesbian Philosophy." Throughout the 1970s LGBT issues were a focus of campus activism. Students filed suit against the Board of Regents to allow the Homophile Club to remain a recognized student organization. They also fought to get sexual orientation added to the University's new Human Relations Code. (The Code was adopted in 1976. It was modified to include sexual orientation as a category protected against discrimination in 1998.) A de facto LGBT Studies "program" evolved over the years as faculty in a range of departments (e.g., Counseling and Personnel Services, English, Philosophy, and Women's Studies) developed courses out of their own research in the field.

In 1997, with the establishment of a President's Commission on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual (and later Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) Issues, momentum developed to formalize the program in order to heighten its visibility and to allow students to obtain an academic credential for the work they were doing. A coalition of faculty members from around the campus--in concert with Luke Jensen, the newly appointed director of LGBT Equity--worked to develop a proposal for an undergraduate certificate and to shepherd it through the lengthy process of campus and state approval. Following final approval in Spring, 2002, Provost William Destler approved the appointment of Marilee Lindemann, associate professor of English, as director of the LGBT Studies Program. The program is administered through the Office of the Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Dean of Undergraduate Studies. The first certificate in LGBT Studies was awarded to Michelle Kendrick, a Women's Studies major, who graduated in Spring, 2002 and fulfilled all the requirements for the certificate just days after it was approved.  Christina Hanhardt, assistant professor of American Studies and LGBT Studies, is the program’s first core faculty member.  She earned her PhD in American Studies at New York University and was appointed to her position in Fall, 2007.

As of Spring, 2009 a total of 31 students have earned certificates in LGBT Studies. Representing the range of appeal for such an interdisciplinary undergraduate certificate, certificate students' majors include Anthropology, Communications, Criminal Justice, Economics, English, Family Science, Government and Politics, History, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, and Women's Studies.