The proposal for a new interdisciplinary Sexuality and Queer Studies minor was approved by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee and went through the first of two faculty votes, Prof. Thomas King (ENG), a member of the UCC and of the program faculty for the new minor, said in an interview with the Justice.The idea behind the minor, which will be offered within the Women and Gender Studies department, has been a topic of discussion since the 2002-2003 academic year and originated as a response to and in support of student activism to increase lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer visibility both on campus and in the Brandeis curriculum, said King, who is also a member of the WGS faculty.

Though the proposal still needs a second vote of approval at the May 19 faculty meeting, King said he is "almost certain" the minor will be approved in the second reading, which would mean the minor would be available to students starting next fall.

According to the proposal, "Students in the program critically consider the relationships among sex, gender, and sexual orientation, desire and identification, and erotic and affectional behavior, as these intersect with other cultural formations including gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, and class."

King wrote in a follow-up e-mail to the Justice that if the proposal is approved, Brandeis will be the first university in Massachusetts to offer a minor specifically in Sexuality and Queer Studies, though Harvard University offers a concentration in a similar field.

"In theNew England area, Brandeis joins Bowdoin [College],which offers a Gay andLesbian Studies minor and the University ofNew Hampshire which offers a Queer Studies minor," King wrote."Smith [College] offers a track within its major in the Study of Women and Gender."

Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe said in an interview with the Justice, "I think that we pride ourselves as a campus that is open and welcoming to LGBTQ students, and I think having the minor is not the main thing that matters in that regard, but it's one aspect of showing that this is a campus that is open to all kinds of students."

Tommy Arnott '11, a member of Triskelion, an LGBTQ community group on campus and one of the students who has been involved in the efforts to create the minor, said that he is very excited about the progress of the minor and believes that it will be an effective way to "increase visibility of sexuality and queer studies on campus."

An initial version of the proposal was brought to the UCC in February 2004 but did not pass due to a lack of courses in the social sciences and an "inability to guarantee faculty resources from across the curriculum to teach in the program," King wrote in a follow-up e-mail to the Justice.

King said in an interview that most of the courses in the new program have always been available across various departments, but that as a result of the "downsizing of the University, it has been difficult to staff the curriculum within the departments and programs that we already have."

Since 2004, additional faculty members, some of whom teach in the social sciences, have joined the effort in support of the minor, which has "really allowed the program to take off," King said. Two such professors, Sarah Lamb and Ellen Schattschneider (ANTH) will be teaching a new course next spring called Queer Anthropology, according to King.

Usman Hameedi '12, a student representative on the UCC, was very impressed by the proposal. "This was a reflection of the [professors] listening to the students and wanting to give them actual foundations to their activism, and that was beautiful," he said in an interview with the Justice.

King said, "In my own teaching, I value enormously the intersection between theory and practice, so what I'm most excited about with this curriculum is [that] it actually is responding to practice and changes that are coming from the students as well as from the world outside of Brandeis."

Prof. Bernadette Brooten (NEJS), who, like King, is a member of the UCC and WGS faculty as well as the program faculty for the new minor, said in an interview with the Justice that what she is "excited about is how studying sexual orientation and gender expression and gender fluidity helps us to understand sexuality as a whole and gender as a whole."

Brooten believes that the minor "is an important opportunity to look at important institutions like marriage and sexuality within society and family, and think, 'Why are they this way, and could they be another way?'"

King and Brooten emphasized that the administration has been very supportive of the minor.

Senior Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences Elaine Wong, who has been involved with the minor since 2003, said in an interview with the Justice, "This is one of the things I really wanted to have happen at Brandeis because . we actually have faculty who are intellectual leaders in the United States, . and [the minor will be] in touch with Brandeis' cutting edge intellectual leadership in this field."

Jaffe said that the reception of the minor has been positive. "I think the faculty working on the proposal have been working on it for some time and they did a good job. They showed that . there was significant student interest in it, so I think people in general thought it was a good proposal.