PSU Capstone

 

In order to graduate from Portland State University, students are required to spend an academic term in supervised community service. PSU refers to this service as the "capstone" of a college education.

Each term a variety of senior capstones are offered at PSU. One of them is Preserving LGBTQ History, taught by Christa Orth. Here's what PSU's website says about the course:

This course introduces methods of preserving lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer history. The course examines the ways community and academic historians document the often hidden history of LGBTQ communities. The Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest is our community partner as we learn about recording oral histories and processing the archival collections of our queer history in Oregon.

Christa Orth is GLAPN's president; she teaches courses in Women's Studies, sexualities, queer studies, queer history and the history of sexualities; she serves on PSU's Sexual and Gender Equality task force and on the committee for the forthcoming Gender and Sexualities minor; and she can be seen around town as a drag/gender performer.

The most recent Capstone class (Fall 2007) completed the cataloging of the Shepherd Family Papers (Bill and Ann Shepherd were among

the founders of PFLAG, Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, in Oregon), and, in addition, contributed a number of new oral histories to the GLAPN archives.