In this ten minute video, longtime LGBTQ studies and philosophy professor Johnnie Terry looks back on his experiences building Sierra College’s LGBTQ studies program completely from scratch, and other experiences he had as a LGBTQ professor and community leader as he approaches his retirement at the end of the spring 2024 semester.
Terry’s legacy includes building the second community college LGBTQ studies degree program in the state, in the face of questions about how it would be beneficial, which he in part attributes to a lack of LGBTQ representation while he was in college and beyond. In 2020, the Association of American Universities surveyed 180,000 college students and found that nearly 17% identified as LGBTQ.
The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network found in 2019 that only 19.4 percent of schools taught positive representations of LGBTQ history, while 17 percent taught negative representations. The Movement Advancement Project shows that only 7 states explicitly require LGBTQ inclusion in school curriculum. Terry believes these students deserve to be represented in and out of college.
Anchored and Video-Edited by Aidan Puentes | Recorded, Video-Edited, and Written by Alex Felt
