UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
MADISON’S LGBT COMMUNITY, 1960s-PRESENT

Interview #998
ALLGOOD, ALNISA

Alnisa Allgood (1968?- )
	Student Activist, Director/Founder of the LGBT Campus Center, Long-term Non-Profit Worker/Specialist 
						
Interviewed:    2009 (4/11)	
Length:            97 minutes 
Interviewer:     Jason Orne 
Index by:         Jason Orne
Series:		Madison’s LGBT Community, 1960s-Present

00:00:00	Start of Interview
JO: 	Great, so we'll just set that right there. And then, perfect. So I guess where I figured we'd start was getting some background information on yourself. So where did you grow up? 
AA: 	OK. It's like real background information. 
JO: 	Yeah, yeah. 
00:00:23
AA: 	I grew up in Warren, Ohio. It's the Northeast corner of the Ohio, kind of between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, pretty much, 
JO: 	And what was it like growing up there, and sort of your teenage years and whatnot? 
AA: 	Oh, I don't think about it much. I mean, I think it was fine, but I wasn't really out in my teen years. I mean I knew, but I wasn't really interested in being out. I was also in the pre-Air Force program, so my energies were kind of focused elsewhere. 
00:01:11
JO: 	Did you end up going into the Air Force? 
AA: 	That's how I got to Penn State, so yes and no. I actually never did my active time, but I had I think four years of reserve time. But I dropped my scholarship right before the enforcement of the active time. When it came in. Which has worked out well, but you know. 
00:01:42
JO:	 So you said you went to Penn State, is that where you went to college? 
AA: 	Yes. 
JO: 	What did you do in college? 
AA: 	What did I do in college? Well let's see. Well, I got an Air Force ROTC scholarship for chemical engineering, and I was doing chemical engineering, administration of justice as a dual major at Penn State. Without actually really any goals for using either of those degrees. I had already started doing nonprofit work at around 14 years old, so I already knew I was going to continue doing nonprofit work. But I did like mechanical engineering. Chemical engineering was fine, but I chose chemical engineering because it was one of the guaranteed. It was the hardest to get scholarship, but if you qualified for it it was pretty much guaranteed, because the Air Force needed chemical engineers at that period of time. So it wasn't even my primary interest, engineering. It was just like, OK, let's just choose this scholarship. I mean, so if I would have stayed I would have obviously ended up doing some chemical research and stuff for the Air Force, but outside of-- I mean I hadn't really planned on making the Air Force any type of career or anything like that. It was really just a way to get to college. 
00:03:17
JO: 	So you said you started doing nonprofit work at 14? 
AA: 	Yeah. The year before I started high school I got involved with the [? Pick ?] program, which basically was kind of like a-- how to describe it? Probably like a low-income job creation program for youth. I think it does adults as well, but I'm not really that familiar with the adult version of the program. So I started doing that the summer that I turned 14, and then from that I actually started doing some kind of nonprofit programming work at different nonprofits, the library in town and things like that. And yeah, that was-- by my first year in college I created my first nonprofit. Well, I shouldn't say created that one. I actually revived a nonprofit that used to exist but had died like a few years back in the state college area. Then from there like the Lesbian Gay Center here, and then my career at nonprofits. 
00:04:51
JO: 	What was that nonprofit that you started? Could you tell me the story of restarting that up? 
AA: 	Oh, god. It was a HIV AIDS education, combination lesbian gay outreach program at Penn State. Well, in state college, basically. And so what had happened-- and I think the IRS rules are little bit different now, but pretty much there's-- you get a 501(c)(3) license, and if you're not filing on the regular basis, or like if the organization folds or something like that, it been pretty much just elapse, but unless you actually file a form saying that the organization is officially closed or over, you still have your 501(c)(3) status. Like now the government actually checks on it every few years. So if you don't file a form 990 in three years or something like that, they automatically pull your status. But then it was kind of like they weren't wasting the resources to check. So yeah, I was doing-- working in the women's center on campus as well as doing some work with the lesbian and gay student organization on campus there. I forget what they were called. I think just like the Lesbian and Gay Student Organization or something like that. And I guess we were doing a fair amount of organizing, like in social and political aspects, but there was definitely a growing need for AIDS education information. And that resource had pretty much gone, it was fairly easy to kind of just revise it as something fairly low maintenance, just kind of publish and distribute information and things like that. But I believe eventually somebody else actually took it over and they started offering other types of services. But, you know, I wasn't really into it for that. I mean, I was in school full time, and still involved with ROTC, actually, at that point as well. So it's not like I needed to-- 
JO: 	Very busy. 
AA: 	Right. 
00:07:22
JO: 	What year was this, just for the timeline? 
AA: 	I'm really bad with years, to be perfectly honest. I went to Penn State in '86, so it would have been somewhere in between '86 and-- I was going to say probably '86 six and '88, I believe. Because I think '88 I went to Holland for six months or something like that. So yeah, it would have been somewhere around there. 
JO:	So I guess to-- because I'm interested about some of your first LGBT activism, but I guess to back up before that, did you have a coming out experience, or what was that sort of like for you? 
AA: 	I didn't really. At least not in like the traditional sense. I mean, I think, as I said, I had acknowledged it to myself in high school, but it wasn't that-- I mean there wasn't really anyone that I was interested in. And I was pretty darn focused on trying to get to college. It wasn't really a big issue at that point. And then in college pretty much after my first year, I was just kind of like, OK, I'm going to go to-- actually I started hanging out at the women's center, because the then heads-- because the Lesbian and Gay Student Organization at Penn State had both a social and a political branch, and they had two heads of each. So there were like four leaders. But the then-heads, the then-female heads of like the social and the political were dating each other. 
JO: 	[LAUGHS] Of course. 
AA: 	Of course, right? And they always hung out at the women's center. So I knew the women's center was a place that other lesbians flocked to, so I started hanging out at the women's center. [LAUGHS] 
00:09:45 
JO:	 Did that also sort of lead to your first activism with them, or had you had done LGBT activism before that? 
AA:	 I would say my first activism with them-- I did stuff related to LGBT activism, just like being involved in the women's center, and like Women Against Rape and things like that. So those frequently involved lesbian health issues and things like that, but not directly related on, oh let's create a community for the lesbian and gays here at Penn State. So it wasn't really until I became chair of the social I guess, which did the social educational chair that I probably started doing more activism-activism type of stuff. 
JO: 	So I guess to just finish up that sort of part, sort of what was it like to be involved with that activism at that time? Was there any particular fights that you had the time, or was there a particularly memorable event that you did? 
00:11:17 
AA:	 There were always tons of fights going on on campus. And some of them will most likely prove to be ongoing probably still, for like years later. But I have to say, I thought Penn State was actually a fairly good place for a lesbian and gay community. I mean, it wasn't Madison. And in a way definitely there was more things to fight for and stuff. But in some ways the community was actually more closer knit, and the allies were also more closer to the groups and stuff as well. So in some ways it was fairly easy to be like, OK, this is the issue we're fighting for next, or something like type of thing. Or it's like, this is our annual so-and-so rally. And literally it becomes one of those things, it's like, yeah it's just the annual one. Because it's like, there's no way we're getting this solved anytime soon. [LAUGHS] So it was enjoyable, I thought. I mean that area of Pennsylvania had tons of other things going on as well that kind of influenced the community. From-- I think you couldn't purchase alcohol after midnight, or something like that. Which was actually kind of cool for the state college area, because the next county over was a dry county where you couldn't purchase alcohol at all. So there was a number of dry counties in Pennsylvania. So it was like, OK, midnight's a perfectly fine limit. 
JO:	 But over here it's like 9:00. 
AA: 	Oh really, is it? 
JO: 	Yeah. 
 [LAUGHTER] 
AA: 	I didn't realize. It's like I see people drinking all the time. 
JO: 	I think here you can't purchase alcohol in stores after 9:00, but you can purchase it at bars until like 1:00 or something like that. 
AA: 	Well, even liquor stores? 
JO: 	Even liquor stores. They just shut down at 9:00. Because I'm always like scrambling to get there in time. 
AA: 	That's so funny. I didn't even realize, actually. Goes to tell you how much I buy alcohol. So there were things like that, but there were a couple bars in town where you had lesbian and gay nights and stuff like that. And those were always fun. We did dances, and I can't remember how frequently-- kind of like the Ten Percent Society dances, but I don't think as frequently as theirs. And I know they're trying to make theirs less frequent now as well, now that there's IQ going on. 
00:14:20 
AA:	But then we used to do house parties. In fact, my first or second year out I kind of lived in what we used to call the dyke house. Because it was basically a house with like I think 10. 10 of us, and me and the political chair actually lived here, so both the social and political chair lived in the house, and then tons of other random women who really like-- a wide variety of interests. We had some rugby players, and it was really just-- it was an interesting mix. Not totally my thing, but it was fine, actually, because I lived on the only-- I had the one bedroom on the first floor, and all the other bedrooms were upstairs. So I pretty much could ignore people, so that worked out well for me. But it was a pretty good mix. Definitely changing the-- what do I recall-- changing the school's discrimination policy was definitely one of the issues that we worked on. There was some stuff around Joe Paterno, but I can't remember what it was because there was so much stuff around Joe Paterno. Because that was it kind of the height of his winning season. Actually, it probably went on for a bit longer after that. But I managed to be-- I'm a non-sports person, but I managed to be at Penn State during the four or five year period where every team at Penn State, every team at Penn State was in the top ten of their sports, except for men's basketball. And it's like sports you had never even heard of, it's like-- not cricket, but-- 
JO: 	Badminton? [LAUGHS] 
00:16:32
AA: 	No, almost like that. Field hockey and stuff like that. It's like, really? What sport is that? It's like, oh, but so-and-so's the number one field hockey player across the nation! It's like, OK. [LAUGHS] So literally, I mean we had Joe Paterno and Renee whatever her last name was. And she was actually fairly controversy, because there were a slew of lesbians on the women's basketball team, and the women's basketball team I think was number one, or maybe number two. But she was very controversial, because you couldn't come out. And if she actually suspected you were lesbian on her team you wouldn't play or you'd get kicked off the team. 
JO: 	Were there not very many players left? [LAUGHS] 
AA: 	It was kind of interesting. It was just like, yeah. So it was kind of like people knew, but it was just kind of like, oh, OK, your basketball team has like half the crowd is lesbians. But yeah. I mean, she got fired or something like that a few years later, though I think over a totally different issue. But to be perfectly honest she was definitely one of those taskmaster type of person. ] So outside of that, though, I can't remember. It's not to say that there weren't important things, it's just it was a long time ago. [LAUGHS] 
00:18:18 
JO: 	So when did you first come to Madison? How did you get to the city? 
AA: 	How did I get to Madison? Kind of randomly, to be perfectly honest. At that point in time I was moving around. Well, my goal was to kind of move to live in at least five or six different cities in the United States before finding someplace. So I was thinking about moving pretty much like every three years. It was my last year of college, except that I couldn't take the last three courses that I needed for another year and a half, because they weren't offered. And I was just like, oh, fuck that. [LAUGHS] It was like, no way, no way. 
JO: 	Yeah, seriously. That sucks. 
AA: 	So I was talking to one of the therapists at the women's center. I don't remember if she was a psychologist or a psychiatrist or whatever. But mostly it was just because I'm like, OK, I can't stay here. I'm not staying here. I'll see what I can figure out about the courses, but I'm undecided about moving between-- I was thinking at that period of time the Raleigh Durham area, and then Flagstaff. Those were actually the two areas that I was considering. And she recommended Madison. She was like, I think you'll really like Madison. So I was like, OK, fine. 
00:19:57 
AA:	Then I had a friend who lived in Ann Arbor, and me and another friend, Bob Smith, who we did a lot of organizing work together and we were pretty good friends, we decided to hitch a ride with her. She dropped us off in Madison and that was pretty much it. We didn't even have a place to stay. 
JO: 	Wow. How'd that work out? What'd y'all do? 
AA: 	I mean, it was fine. We got here, we came to a Ten Percent Society Meeting I think like that night. I mean, it was the summer so we weren't super worried about it. We were just like, it's the summer. [LAUGHS] But actually we ended up staying in the Ten Percent Society offices, the ones in the junky old buildings that are going to be ripped out sometime soon, for a couple weeks, actually, I think, until we found some place to live and whatnot. And that's actually how the campus center got started, to be perfectly honest. Because we were there at night and just was reading through all of the historical files that were in the office, and I just asked the question, I'm like, why does this campus not have a lesbian and gay center? It was like the big issue I think back from like the '70s, from the research that we were going through. 
00:21:31 
AA:	And from what I could tell there was a fairly clear course of action that the Dean of Students office was recommending to the students that they could take. But everybody seemed to be very much pushed on getting the regents to give them a lesbian and gay student center. And the regents weren't going to budge anytime soon on it. I mean they barely approved the multicultural center. And it was just kind of one of those things. It was just like, well, Dean Rouse and Jan Sheppard, they pretty much had indicated that you could go through the board of regents, which what everybody was doing and they were fighting and fighting, year after year. Or you could just go through student segregated fee. Pretty much a month later I contacted Jan Sheppard with a couple page plan outlining the process and all of the other stuff, and we got approval maybe two or three months after that. And we just had to wait for the next fiscal year for everything to kick in. So it was relatively easy to do. It's just that people were so focused in on one course of action that they just didn't step back to look to see what the other options were. 
JO:	How did the other people here react to you saying that we should go with this other plan rather than the regent plan? 
AA:	 Good question. I have to say I don't know. 
 [LAUGHTER] 
AA: 	And I like getting other people's opinions, but I'm not really one of those person who needs to have consensus when I decide to do something. I've pretty much decided to do it. I went to this Dean Rouse and all of the other stuff. And once I pretty much thought it was going to happen, then I went to the Ten Percent Society, campus women's center, and all of those, and said, this is what I'm doing. I'd like all you guys to sit on and have a representative on the board. And they all agreed. I mean I suppose if I would have went there first, like, why don't we do it this way, we could have possibly been debating it for like another year or two. But I tend not to do those types of debates. 
JO:	You just get in there and do it. 
AA: 	I mean, some things I feel like, OK, you need to have the debates and stuff, but for other type of things it's just kind of like you're better off just doing it, and let the debate be on the particulars. It's like, does it really have to be off-campus, do you have-- but you know. Sometimes it's all about how you define the debate. Because people will debate anything. You don't really want them to be actually debating, well should we do it this way? It's like, whatever, it's a method of doing it. 
00:25:01
JO: 	So was the campus center still located in the same position as it is now, in the union, or where was the-- 
AA: 	The original campus center was actually off-campus, on Dayton Street in the capitol center building. It was like the fire station was kind of behind it, and the senior building is kind of in front of it, over there by Cap Foods and stuff like that. It was the space that's kind of-- there's a tanning salon at the corner, and then it was the space next to that. It was a nice-sized space. It was actually kind of about the same size as, I think, the space in the university. I mean in the union right now. But no, that used to be actually all part of the multicultural center. So the study area that's across from that? That was the main offices of the multicultural center. And the area where the lesbian and gay center was is where the multicultural student organizations used to meet. And then they used to also have that room where the tickets are being sold. And that used to be a computer center for the multicultural students. In fact, I was speaking I think to Eric, or-- no, of the guys from the Ten Percent Society, and I was expressing my surprise that they didn't actually have the computer room as well. But they took that, and I guess they were like, we're taking that back for ticketing or something. [LAUGHS] But no, it was actually nice to be off-campus. It wasn't a goal to keep it off-campus, but it was kind of easier to get rent money at that period of time than it was to get space on campus. Space on campus was pretty much at a premium, and any space that they were offering would have actually at that period of time been like a room or something like that. And we really wanted a space where we could do support group meetings or like smaller type of events. And of course the larger events were done on campus. And we had the lending library there and whatnot. And it was close enough to campus for people to not be bothered for the walk. 
JO:	So what was the process of getting it set up off-campus? What was that sort of-- [UNINTELLIGIBLE]? 
AA: 	It wasn't that much of a process, to be perfectly honest. It was mostly just finding a space. And I can't remember how I found the space. I think I just actually walked that area looking for possible rental spaces. I mean, obviously we needed the rent to be not super expensive, because the rent was going to end up being kind of the biggest part of the funding allocation to us. And so we needed the rent to not be super expensive. We needed it to be a nice-sized space. I mean, obviously it wasn't super large, but it was enough space where we kind of had a library books over in this corner, and then a couch and a chair kind of in front of this, so people could pick a book, sit down in the library. And then there was another couch kind of back over there, I think with a TV actually as well. But that's kind of where some of the smaller support groups met. And then we had a desk at the front, near the front. And then we kept most of the other space open, so that if we were doing like reception and things like that, that there was enough room for people to mix and mingle and walk around. So it was a fairly simple set-up, but it was fairly effective, I think, for the size space that it was. 
00:29:36
AA:	I think I just started walking the area, found that space. I guess it had been, at that period of time, empty for a couple years or something like that. And once we had the full approval from SUFAC, then we-- I'm trying to remember if I signed the rental contracts or if we got the Dean of Students office to sign the rental contracts. Yeah. I can't remember who signed the rental contracts. But we just got the contract signed for it. We did a lot of pre-work between-- I mean, because we got the approval pretty quickly. Because it was one of those things that was like, you could do this in a month and know before the end of this semester that you have approval for the next year, or you have to wait until the next year to do it. So we kind of just did this big push to get everything up and approved. It went through really quickly. I think they came back at me and-- I'm trying to remember who was working with me at that period of time. I mean they just came back with maybe two or three questions that they wanted for their clarification. And after we did the clarification for that, they approved pretty much the entire budget. Well no, actually I think they did drop the budget some. But that was fine. It was still a livable budget. It was just the rental space, a little bit of money for programming, and then a quarter of a position salary for me and half a position salary for a student, because I wasn't, obviously, a student at the university at that period of time. Which was fine, because I was already doing multicultural work with the United Council, actually. 
00:31:54
JO: 	So you sort of had a couple different projects going on at the same time? 
AA:	 Kind of, yeah. Once I got here, it was pretty much, OK, find a place to live, see what's happening, and find a job. And so I think the first job I got was actually at the union doing like food preparation. But it was just like a summer, limited term type of thing, and it was like immediate money. And from there then I applied for a position with the United Council of Student Government, because I figured that would be a good way to find out what's really going on in the university system. And then I was doing the lesbian and gay center. And as I said, the approval for it happened six, eight months before we could actually do anything. I'm trying to remember what your school cycles are, but it's not really a year, but it's a student year or whatever. I'm possibly making it sound easier than it was, but it wasn't really that complicated, to be perfectly honest. It was just one of those things that it was just kind of like really, literally it was up and running a little bit later, but all the approval for funding and all that other stuff was pretty much done in just a couple months. The Dean of Students office was gung ho behind it. They put Janice Sheppard as our advisor to it, and they put in letters of recommendation recommending that it would be funded, and all of that other stuff. And then there was the Ten Percent Society, there was GLMA, which was like the gay and lesbian student of color group. There was campus women's center. I think we got some people from the multicultural center. I forget who else rounded out the board. I think we also got a representative from, I think they're called Outreach now, but I'm trying to remember with their name was back then. They were a different name back then. So we got some representatives from the community as well to sit on the board of directors. Our big issue, or at least my big focus was, at that period of time, to really make sure that it was inclusive of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people of color, and women and people with disabilities. So we actually had a much larger, I think, slant on disenfranchised communities at that period of time. 
00:35:05
AA:	But otherwise I think they're following some of the-- I don't know if that's just happenstance or if they're just continuing along to doing it, but I think they're still continuing in some ways some of the programs we initiated. Because I know the second year in existence I was just kind of like, we need to get integrated into the classroom structure. Once we had the lending library set up, I started doing letters and face-to-face visits to all these humanity instructors. It's like, well you know, this topic might be of interest to your students when they're writing reports, and we have the books that they can use. And all of the sudden there's students trekking in, and it's like, I'm doing a research report on-- you know. And then we actually had like this speakers bureau, which I don't know if they still have or not, going into the classrooms and dormitories and things like that. And in fact I think now their library system is connected to the university library system. But at that period of time it totally wasn't. and the associate director, I hired this guy called Joe Eubaker I believe, or something like that. But we were also both geeks, and so we actually designed a database system for the lending library. So we had the first lending library of any of the student groups on campus, and then we ended up passing out the database system to I think 10 other student organizations on campus. Actually, the other student organizations really loved us, because we would do their graphic design work for them. It was like, we'll do your graphic design work for this event and this event, and you'll co-sponsor this event. We really had hardly any money for programming, but we got all the other organizations to pay for our events, so we just did work for them. 
JO: 	Hey, that sounds fantastic. What a great deal. 
 [LAUGHTER] 
AA: 	So yeah. 
00:37:26
JO: 	So during that eight months in between-- before we get back to some of the programming and stuff during that eight months in between when y'all were given approval and then actually opened up, what happened with the center during that? 
AA: 	Mostly it was hiring. So I put out the position announcement for an assistant director. And then we just had a part-time helper. I can't remember what that position was called. And then finding the space, finding furniture and stuff. Actually we got a fair amount of stuff through UW Surplus and not St. Vincent De Paul, but-- no, actually, you guys do have a St. Vinnie's, so quite possibly St. Vinnie's as well. I was like, is that a San Francisco? 
JO:	 No, we have one. 
AA: 	Let's see, what else. And then a fair amount of outreach, actually. But not-- well I guess it would depend on what you consider the real outreach. At that period of time it was like the manual kind of outreach, going to various meetings, talking to people, telling people what to expect, inviting people to various events and things like that. So definitely that type of outreach. But it wasn't until before the center officially opened but when we actually had the space set up and everything that we started doing what I consider that outreach, which is, like, electronic. I mean, it was early at that stage, but we had actually a massive email list. We hooked the center up with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, because I used to do work for them as well. Because we had started-- they used to have a People of Color Institute, and I used to help organize that for them. So spreading out word throughout the UW system, because there wasn't any other lesbian and gay center into any of the UW system, so we kind of started sending out the words. Like you'd call for telephone support, if you want to put on an event, we can see if we can get people to travel up there. Can't borrow our books, but [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. It's like, sorry, our lending library is not-- [LAUGHS]. But I guess there were two phrases. There was the face-to-face stuff, and then we had a few weeks before students got back on campus where we were kind of in office but not officially open. And that was kind of more of the electronic stuff, like collecting email addresses, putting together really massive kind of resource lists across the board, and about that. And designing fliers and putting together what's going to be our list of events for the year, and who can we possibly get to help with them, and stuff like that. And then we had our grand opening I think the first or second week of school. 
JO: 	So then what sort of programming did you all sort of start to do at first? That first year, I guess. 
AA: 	Yeah, I mean, we did a lot of stuff. In fact, actually, let's see, I'm trying to think-- I mean obviously we initiated a number of support groups. Like we had [? Bi Shy Why ?] I think there was a transgender group. Then there was a coming out group, I definitely did not do that. I actually am fairly supportive of people coming out, but at the same time it's like, yeah, after Penn State I was like, I will never do another coming out group. [LAUGHS] I'm like, I do not have the proper mentality for it. [LAUGHS] But there were a couple of really good people who led the coming out group. And we set up the space as a meeting space. We really wanted to get people to start using the space immediately. So it was a meeting space for some groups that had already existed and were trying to find regular meeting space around town. But then also we would occasionally do things like offer to do-- you know, well we'll do your reception for this event, and you can have our space for the evening for free. I know we did that for a couple of the women's center's events, because they just had that-- well, it was actually bigger than the Ten Percent Society, but it was a smaller space over there that was kind of shared between Ten Percent Society, the women's center, [? Wonk ?] [? Shink ?] and there was some other organization there that I can't remember. So we would do some of the receptions for some of the other organization events there. 
00:43:13
AA:	And then we started up a people of colors speaker series, which actually went over very well. I say that as if I'm surprised, but I was kind of surprised. Because typically speaking, the Ten Percent Society was bringing in all these really big known name people, which invariably always ended up being white, very attractive looking guys. [LAUGHS] 
JO: 	How'd that happen, you know? Right. 
AA:	Exactly. So we did this people of color speaker series, and I think the first year we did it, we did just four speakers, most likely that nobody who wasn't a person-- I mean, even most people of color hadn't heard of them. So it was only like queer people of color who might have actually happened to hear about these people-- mostly women, actually. And actually the first year we got better turnout than we expected, but still actually the second year the turnouts were getting incredibly large for the events. The first year to turnouts were maybe around 50 people or something like that. And we got the multicultural center involved, and we'd ramrod it like some of the other student groups. It's like, really, do you not want your name on this? It's like, it's a black woman coming to campus. [LAUGHS] 
JO: 	You've got to have your name on the flier. 
AA: 	Right, exactly. [LAUGHS] So that type of stuff. Actually, that series took off pretty well, and we started doing that I think every year. In fact I think we grew it to six times a year, so every other month there was a speaker. And we even got some of the secondary colleges in town involved with it. Like Edgewood College actually cosponsored a couple of them. Because then we just did kind of like a duel. So they would speak on Madison and then maybe do a class presentation or something like that on Edgewood, at Edgewood. And so we did that. I'm trying to think-- there were a couple conferences, but I don't think they were here in Madison. We got, actually, the lesbian and gay center and then pulled in a little bit whatever outreach was called. That name is forever gone. But because I was already doing some work with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, we worked with them to kind of create a Midwest regional lesbian and gay student conference and got a fair number of people to participate in that and go to that. But then the other stuff was a little bit more focused in on integration in the classrooms and the dormitories, really acting as a resource and a kind of a reference for people. And as I said before, not just on lesbian and gay issues, as well we wanted to actually be of service to some of the organizations that we felt like that we were closely aligned to, or that we should be closely aligned to even if they didn't necessarily have that much of interest to it. But it was more just a matter of coming up with ways to make them feel like, OK, even if we don't like them that much, they design great fliers, and they seem to really be able to send out information to a large number of people very rapidly. It's because at that period of time it was still-- you know, UW, Penn State, most of the schools were handing out that your email on like a floppy disk. 
 [LAUGHTER] 
00:47:53
AA: 	Yeah, it's hard to imagine now, but it was still the early stages, so the universities were at the forefront of giving all of their students email, but typically you got a floppy disk with Eudora on it and you could take it to any computer on campus and put it in. But most student organizations and stuff hadn't actually really learned how. They could barely check their own email. They didn't actually know how to do listserves or any of that type of stuff. So we were like gang-bangers to them. It was like, why don't you just give that to us, and we can send it out to like 800 people. The benefits of having geeks. 
JO: 	You all were like the forefront of that thing. So how do you think that things changed, either for the campus or for Madison once the center came? 
AA: 	Once the center came? It's hard to say, to be perfectly honest. I mean I think the center did act as a great resource and stuff, but I'm not certain if I would consider it life-changing. But that's just me. Other people quite possibly did. But I wasn't totally enmeshed in the Madison culture. Obviously, I mean, I had only been here for a couple months when I started the center. So it's like I wasn't really that immersed in everything that was going on. I had kind of like just a background knowledge from the state historical society and the Ten Percent Society files about what had been happening, what was currently happening, the various issues and stuff that people were fighting for. And then obviously I started going to some of the Ten Percent Society meetings, but I [UNINTELLIGIBLE] kind of limit that to just like one meeting per month, or something like that. I mean, nothing against them. It was just not-- I mean, a lot of the meetings were really just like these-- they were either going after this issue or this issue kind of continuously, or they were planning like a dance. And it just kind of wasn't really where I was at. I was more into services obviously, like from my nonprofit background. I'm a service type of girl. So the political rallies and things like that, I'd participate in here and there. But debating what should happen, when it should happen, why are we demanding this, it's like, whatever. But that was fine, because there were other members of the board that would go to those meetings. Or there was actually a representative from those organizations also on the board. So I felt like we were getting the information. At least I felt like I was getting the information that we needed to act as a resource for other people who might be interested in those type of things. 
00:51:35
AA:	But we didn't really-- I mean, some people were like, well aren't you going to distract from the Ten Percent Society? And my original thought was no, and to be perfectly honest, I don't-- at least not at that period of time-- I don't believe that we did. I mean their big money maker was the Ten Percent Society dance, and they used to make a ton of money off of those. Obviously now they're thinking about limiting them because IQ is actually taking away most of their traffic for that. But before that, the Ten Percent Society dances were pretty much the only game in town. I mean, there was the Hotel Washington for a while, but that was mostly there on weekends and for people who were above the age of 21. Not that it wasn't great-- before it burned down. [LAUGHS] But it was actually a really nice building. Because it was like-- did they actually have a hotel? I think there was a hotel on top of it, but it was basically a series of like four or five bars in it. Like the Barber's Closet, which was my favorite bar. There was a dance club there, and then another type of darker bar. I don't want to call it a leather bar-- actually, it was a leather bar.  [LAUGHTER] : So never mind, let's just call that a leather bar. [LAUGHS] There was a leather bar and then there was this food restaurant type of place. And so yeah. That was actually, outside of the Ten Percent Society, that was the other place to go. But mostly on weekends for that. So it was pretty much like people still flocked to the Ten Percent Society dance. So I thought what we brought to the table were really more services and the consolidation of services. Because there were tons of random support groups around, and tons of people doing stuff individually, but not really having access to regular meeting spaces or things like that. So we kind of offered, I thought, that ability. It was like, you can use our space to meet. You can come here for regular-- we had a nice schedule of the groups that were meeting there on a regular basis, and then we left some slots open so that people can fit things in on the random basis. And then even during the days, some people would come into organize their stuff. Because it's like, OK, we were in a coffee shop, but there was a TV, there was a radio, there were books, you could sit around and talk and work, and we had internet access. The only thing we were missing was the coffee, but neither Joe or myself drink coffee, so it's just like, whatever. Steep & Brew's around the corner. And I think also we did provide, at that period of time anyway, kind of a central point for the rest of the UW system, as well, on lesbian and gay issues. We actually did act as a resource for lesbian and gay organizations at other campuses. Like if they wanted to start one up, we would do the research for them. What other resources are in the area, who do you think you need to speak to, things like that. That was stuff that was all feasible to do. Not in the same way that it is now, because now it's like you can find almost anything online. But there was still a fair amount of information online at that period of time, even though it wasn't the multitude at that period of time. And for a lot of these people it was just like they hadn't really organized anything. Maybe an event or something like that, but when it came to how do we get a center, or how do we get a space, or something like that, so there were tons of questions about that. Or who they should outreach to. 
00:56:13
AA:	In Wisconsin at that period of time-- and I don't know if it was just Wisconsin or if it was just Madison that set the example for the rest of the UW systems, but the first reaction was to go into kind of protest mode, as opposed to going into planning mode. And it's not to say that you don't have to protest sometimes, but if you kind of want a space on campus, blah blah blah, your first step shouldn't be, oh, let's go protest the Board of Regents. I mean, it might come down to that, but you should actually kind of figure out, well where could the space actually be on campus? Is that space being used? If you're going to be adding it onto a space that already exists do you have the agreement of the people who already have the space? You don't just go protest gangbusters and not actually have any answers to any of these questions, type of deal. So we helped people with getting those answers. And was like, then if you want to protest go right ahead. Because then at least you have the answers. Like if somebody was like, well where's it going to go, you're not going to be like, well you guys have to find the space. [LAUGHS] 
JO: 	And make a protest about that, too. 
AA: 	Right, exactly. [LAUGHS] 
JO: 	So sort of two sets of questions. But still on the center for the first one. Were there any, in those years, big conflicts or anything like that? Any tensions that the center had with other groups that were within the center or anything like that? 
AA:	 Not while I was there, to be perfectly honest. But I believe the year after I left there was a fairly big conflict. And to be perfectly honest, it was probably brewing before hand. But I'm not a big agitator. And I'm also fairly good at getting around other people's agitation and focusing them in on what I consider the point of action, as opposed to what they're arguing about. So definitely, I think before I left I already knew that there was going to be a couple points of contention. One of the biggest points was going to be how much work we did on lesbian and gay people of color and kind of disenfranchised communities. But the second one was always going to be SUFAC funding, because there were definitely people who thought the campus center shouldn't get SUFAC funding. It was just like, it doesn't serve the entire student population. It's like, actually we did. I went out of our way to make sure that we had the numbers and statistics to prove that we weren't just serving the lesbian and gay community, even though that was kind of our ultimate goal at that period of time. 
00:59:43
AA:	 But unfortunately I know-- and I don't really even know the whole story around this, because I left right before our next SUFAC funding meeting. I mean it wasn't like-- yeah, it was maybe a month or so before, but it was at the beginning of the school year. And I was planning on going, we hired somebody, and we knew that they were going to take over at the beginning of the school year, and I was going to be gone. And I was just kind of like-- I thought it would be fine. But when we were choosing a candidate, it came down to two issues, really, for us. There was one guy who we really though could navigate the student government and SUFAC and all of that other stuff very well, but he really, really, really sucked on service issues, people of color, all those type of stuff. But he was really good at dealing with the student government and all of that stuff. In fact, he had actually served on the student government. And then the other guy was pretty much a newbie in all things student government, but was actually fairly good on the service issues and things like that. And so that came down to our decision around that. I had made the final decision to go with the person with the service thing, and I was just kind of like, I'm in San Francisco but give me a call. We can go over all this other stuff like that, I can walk you through this. But whatever. Everybody wants to be independent. So they didn't call, they didn't ask for my assistance, and they got their budget slashed, I think in half, almost immediately. I think it was kind of very upsetting for not only him, but for the board of directors and stuff there. And I felt bad about it, but then at the same time it was just like, I told you to call. I told you what you were going to be coming up against, and it's not like we hadn't dealt with this stuff each year. It wasn't like people were like, oh yeah, let's give them money. 
JO: 	Yeah. When are they ever like, let's just give them money? 
AA:	 Exactly. And he was just like, well I felt like I was unprepared and you hadn't warned me. And I'm just like-- you know. But that was actually, I think, the really big disappointment. Because I think because of the funding cuts they did actually-- the year after that is what they ended up moving back on campus. And their first move back on campus was incredibly small space. I don't know where it was at, but I remember somebody describing it to me. And it was just kind of like they got the promise that once the red gym was completed that they would get a larger space, but it was really kind of a massive step down in terms of services and resources and things like that. And I think that lasted for maybe two or three years from that. So what Eric has today is really almost like a total rebuilding of the center. And I think they offer, as I said before, a lot of the same services or in different components and stuff of what we did before, but that's-- from where they started out from on campus, that was almost like just rebuilding a totally new organization, as opposed to what was there priorly. So a lot of effort, I think, on their part to kind of get it back up. 
[01:03:50.23] 
JO: 	Absolutely. I know you said you're bad with years, but do you remember what year was that you left and went to San Francisco? Even just a range? 
AA:	 I'm trying to think. I want to say something like '96, '97? Well, actually let me back up. I started at Nonprofit Tech in '98. I was in San Francisco for a year, year and a half before I did that. So yeah. Maybe like around '96 I think. 
JO: 	Great. Just wanted to have a sort of reference point on the tapes. 
AA: 	So something like that. It was I think I was at the center for four years before I left. And I did give almost a year-- well, it wasn't a full calendar year, I think it was an academic year-- notice, that I'm thinking about leaving. I was only planning on staying here for three to five years, and it's already been past three. [LAUGHS] So yeah, that seems probably close enough. 
JO: 	Yeah. No, that's great. So I guess on my last set of questions is about what it was just like living in Madison during that time of when you were setting up the center and whatnot. You mentioned that you liked to go to The Barber's Closet? 
AA: 	The Barber's Closet is part of Hotel Washington, yeah. What was it like in Madison? I had a ball, to be perfectly honest. I mean I really liked Madison. It's amazing that it was never on my list of places to live. I moved out the east side. I had a fairly nice apartment, rent was low, and I divided a fair amount of my time between the Lesbian and Gay Campus Center and then other organizing work. I worked with the United Council I think for two years. I worked at Edgewood College for a couple of years. And then I had kind of sideline national projects that I was doing as well. But there was a small but pretty strong lesbian and gay people of color community here. The Hotel Washington, in the three or four bars there were good avenues. And then there were a couple of other things. There was Club 3052 that was out East Washington, Amy's Cafe was always pretty gay friendly. And then there was some place on the square that I think's still there that used to do some type of gay night once a month or something. 
01:07:25
AA:	But for me it was kind of a perfect environment. I don't like my towns too big, I don't drive, I'm a walker, I love walking past water. San Francisco is a bay it's just like, never saw the water. Hated it. It was like, you had to take special trips to go to the water. So yeah, I felt like there was a fair amount of activity. And people complained, definitely, about there wasn't this resource or that resource, or things like that, but we had a number of really good bookstore-- listen to me. There were good bookstores, there was like a bar, a food place, I'm good. [LAUGHTER] 
JO:	 I got what I need. 
AA: 	Exactly. It's like, my internet connection, hey. I'm ready.  [LAUGHTER] 
JO: 	A geek after my own heart. 
AA: 	But yeah, there was A Room of One's Own, which seems like it's been here forever. I don't know when it started out, but it was here when I got there. They actually started expanding their lesbian and gay collection quite a lot, actually, once we moved around, because we were coming in, ordering special books, all the time from them. It's like, you're right around the corner, you can order these books for us. I mean, that was before Amazon and stuff. There was A Room of One's Own, there was Canterbury Books, which I think now is just the inn, but it used to be both the inn and a bookstore. They actually used to do quite a lot of stuff on those main gay issues as well. In fact, actually a number of the bookstores here had started doing lots of things around lesbian and gay issues. They would do full displays for out and about month or week, and stuff like that. It used to be we would go to A Room of One's Own as like, this is coming up, can you do a display? And then after a while it was just like, oh, so and so and so, they would just send us notice that they're doing a display. We're like, great. I thought it was a pretty nice environment to live in. But some people want very different things than what I want out of the environment. And obviously, it's not Milwaukee, there's not a club scene. Well, I guess now there is kind of a club scene. But at that period of time there wasn't really a club scene going on. There wasn't like the massive amount of people and access to people. But on the other end it's like, we didn't have the Dahmer here. I was here during the Jeffrey Dahmer years. That wasn't going on in Madison either. 
01:10:37
AA:	It was kind of like I would do typically the campus center in the day, like a secondary job in the afternoon. I would come back for some evening programs, to the campus center, meet up with whoever was at that meeting and was like, well let's go to the Barber's Closet. And we'd sit and talk politics that always turned into sex.  [LAUGHTER] And we drink some more, and we walk home. So I thought it was good. 
JO: 	Every good queer conversation turns to sex. 
AA: 	As far as I'm concerned, every good conversation turns to sex. You don't know if the conversation's really good unless it eventually leads you down. 
JO: 	Yeah, exactly. Especially with a couple drinks at the club. 
AA: 	Right. So I thought it was a very nice-- and I still do, obviously. I came back to Madison. Obviously it's in some ways very different. Like I haven't gotten super involved in the lesbian and gay community since I've been back for a couple reasons. One, I haven't felt the strong need, but two I spent the first four years when I was back taking care of my mom, who was really sick. And then she just passed away recently, so then I'm much more familiar with the senior community and senior resources and things like that. 
01:12:11
AA:	But I think in some ways it seemed like it was easier to connect to the lesbian and gay community then than it does now, but that's also because I'm not actually-- I mean, there is IQ, there's the various lesbian and gay sports associations and things like that. So I don't feel like-- like I have one friend who feels like there's nothing going on. I'm not one of those people. I feel like there's a lot of stuff going on, I just feel like it's not really that much going on that I'm interested in right now. But I wouldn't-- just because I'm not interested I don't feel like there's nothing going on. It's just my interests have narrowed down. I feel like my interests have narrowed down a lot since then. I do feel like-- I mean obviously there's the club, the IQ, and they also do another club somewhere else. The disco-- actually, discotheque is part of IQ as well, isn't it? 
JO: 	Yeah, they have discotheque and then they have like a girl night, and then they have some other-- they have like a Night at the Cardinal or something like that. 
AA: 	Right, yeah. I feel like those things are of interest and things like that, but I'm not really a big bar person-- well actually, I don't mind bars. I'm not a big club person. Even when I was in San Francisco, I'm just like, you mean the date rotates? I'm like I like my bars to just be there. If I'm randomly thinking, oh, I'm in the neighborhood, let's stop by. My friends called me a fuddy-duddy in San Francisco. I'm like, I'm sorry, I can't remember the first Thursday of random every third month or something. I'm just like, what the--? There really shouldn't have to be mathematics involved in the process. So definitely having someplace like the Hotel Washington there, where it was always just like, oh let's go to the Barber's Closet, or let's go to-- I forget what the dance part of it was called. Let's go out dancing, and stuff like that. And obviously, as I said, there were the two other places. The one out towards Fitchburg I think is still there, but Club 3054 is kind of gone now. And there's still the one out towards Fitchburg, but I don't drive. That's a long ways away. 
01:15:06
AA	So definitely I feel like that resource is kind of missing, and it's been kind of substitute with club resources, which I consider perfectly viable, but just not as interesting to me. Because when it comes down to it, it's kind of like, I can stay out to 2:00 or 3:00, but you actually need to have me out by 6:00 PM. If I'm not out of my house by 6:00 PM it's just like, oh yeah, no.  [LAUGHTER] 
JO: 	So they've just got to get you to go to dinner first. And then-- 
AA: 	Exactly. Dinner, and then a bar to drink, and then we can go to the club. 11:00 PM, meeting up to go to a club, it's like, yeah. Not happening. I feel like the scene-- I feel like things are different, but at the same time I still fee like Madison has a lot of great resources, I think, for the lesbian and gay community. And I don't necessarily feel people value how much at ease it can be here versus elsewhere in the country. And it's a good thing, I think, but I feel like people are fighting for stuff all the time that they don't actually sit down and be like, Madison's a great place for lesbian and gay people to be. Who would think somewhere in the Midwest would have such a strong resource area and such a large population of lesbian and gay people here, as well? I think it's estimated at like, what, 25% or something like that of the population. Or at least that's what it used to be estimated at. Of people who identified as lesbian, gay, or bi, or just kind of queer identified. And that's actually, I think, one of the benefits here in Madison, there are tons of people who would just queer identify even if they've never had a same-sex partner whatsoever. They're like, I'm cool with it, I'm down with it. It's like, I've thought about it, but you know. That really just doesn't happen in a lot of other places. And I think people kind of forget that. Or sometimes they get too comfortable with that. Because sometimes they assume that everything that happens in Madison, that's the way everybody in Wisconsin feels about it. It's like, Madison is kind of like a nice, gay Mecca on the water in central Wisconsin. [LAUGHS] 
01:18:01
AA:	I still feel it's a great place to be a lesbian and gay person, especially if you're not into the big cities. But if you're into the big cities, obviously there's Chicago, there's Milwaukee, or you can do the brain drain to either coast. What we call that, I always call it the brain drain because it's like everybody splits to either the east or the west coast and that's where 90% percent of the funding for various services goes as well. It's always very interesting. I think the Midwest always does have its very particular, own particular sets of issues, especially around funding of various types of services and stuff. And always doing more with a lot less funding. Oh, hell, I mean when I first moved to San Francisco I became part of this great program there, it was called Health Initiatives for Youth. And we did basically youth HIV work, and in fact, Pedro Zamora from The Real World, whatever season that was, he actually did work with the organization, him and his lover Sean Sasser. And things like that. It was a great organization. And I actually worked on a starter project up under it that was called Provider Services, or Youth Providers, or something like that. But the goal was to provide resources, information, and training to all of the organizations in the six county Bay Area that could possibly have to deal with gay and lesbian youth. So it was perfect for me, because I was just in San Francisco and I needed to get a lay of the land, and it was like, perfect. A nice database of all the youth service organizations there. But at the same time, we got a lot of money to do the services that we did, and we did them incredibly well, so I'm not complaining about that. But typically speaking, about 10 to 20 times the amount of money that you could get here in Madison to do a similar type of services, but only had to service far less. 
01:20:40
AA:	With the Lesbian and Gay Center, when I was running it, we were serving over 30,000 people a year in terms of programming and things like that. And part of that was just how Joe and I approach outreach and programming and services and stuff like that. And we complemented each other, I think, very well. And he was way more outgoing than I am, so he got-- it was like, go out there and flirt with everybody. [LAUGHS] But we were serving-- I think our first year we served something like 20,000, 25,000. And the next year we did a leapfrog increase of that. And I think our annual budget was less than-- I want to say make less than $50,000 a year, or something like that. Yeah. Let that go. And our budget with Health Initiative for Youth was around $375,000. We only had to serve like 3,000 people a year. 
JO: 	Wow. 
AA: 	Yeah. So that's really the difference between those types of-- I mean, when people joke about the brain drain and stuff, they don't actually really, I think, consider what it really means. It's not that people are just leaving the Midwest to go there, but that's where all the finding is going, there as well. And they have to serve way less people. 
AA:	But what it does, you'd think that would give us an advantage, we're going to outreach to more people. It doesn't, though. Because what happens is like all these government institutions and foundations and stuff base their target numbers off of these other organizations from the east and west coast, so from their perspective if you come in and say you're going to serve 50,000 people on $100,000, they're like, you don't know what you're talking about. You can't do it. Your grant is out the window before it's even considered. You don't even make the first tier of cutoffs, and there's typically three tiers of cutoffs. The first tier is like all these random people just going through saying, no, the budget numbers don't even match up with what we're looking for. And that's how most of the funding gets cut out of the Midwest. Because the Midwest is giving what we really consider realistic numbers. It's like, well you know you can serve that many because you're already serving this many at this point. But then you're getting compared to some place in San Francisco or something like that where they're like, we need a half a million dollars to serve 5,000 people. And so it really, it kind of creates this massive world of disparities in funding-- not just for the lesbian and gay community, but across the board in terms of services. And I think people really just don't understand that. They're just like, well I thought it was a good proposal. They keep going back, refining their proposal, or they're like, I must have asked for too much. And they keep on how short falling and short falling. And it's like, no, actually half of your proposals are rejected because you didn't ask for enough money. Literally. They'll have these criteria like, we're looking to fund a $250,000 to a half a million dollar proposal, and you put in a proposal for $50,000. It's amazing. 
JO:	 I didn't quite ever realize it was that stark. Wow. 
AA: 	So. Anyway. That's my soapbox.  [LAUGHTER] 
01:24:43
JO: 	So was there anything else that you wanted to add to your story? 
AA: 	Not that I can think of. It was really fun doing the Lesbian and Gay Center, and definitely I would say some people would disagree with me, but I thought the university provided us a fair amount of assistance in getting that accomplished and helping us pave the way into getting the SUFAC funding and stuff. And not that it was all green lights ahead, but I didn't really think dealing with the SUFAC people and stuff like that was super complicated. Obviously probably a bit more complicated than what I consider, considering what happened after the fact. But no. I mean I think we, after all the planning stuff [UNINTELLIGIBLE] we ended up, I thought, with a great board of directors. We had really good working relationships with all the residence halls, the Dean of Students office, we were in and out of the student government and the multicultural center all the time. And we didn't actually at that time try to quantify it. I mean, we quantified other things, but we didn't actually try to quantify how we managed to create these bonds with other organizations and how strong those bonds had grown. But I thought we actually had really good relationships with organizations that we wouldn't naturally have had great relationships for if you were just thinking about it. It's like why would the Lesbian and Gay Campus Center have any type of relationship with the Black Student Association? It's one of those things that it's a bond that, obviously, you have to work on. There has to be some type of extension, self-extension, kind of going out there. And maybe a little bit of persuasion, but sometimes just a certain amount of stability, like in terms of not pestering them too much but not going too far away. It's like, you again. Because it's like a lot of the student of color organizations didn't have anything to do with the Ten Percent Society. They were those white rabble rousers that were always out there protesting this, doing this kiss-in, doing that sit-in, doing a [? die-end. ?] And then they had those dances. 
01:27:42
AA:	So I thought in terms of building alliances and really working on relationship, for me I thought we'd actually gotten to a point where we really had created this culture of not really progressive organizations, but disenfranchised organizations. It got to the point where we can all work together, even if we don't really like so and so. It was all the sudden you start noticing that the BSA events actually have more cosponsors, where it really used to be like the-- I forget what the department's called, like the African Studies Department, and the BSA and the multicultural center. That was typically all their events, those were the three sponsors. But then all of the sudden it's like after a year or so, all of the sudden you see it's like there's the Lesbian and Gay center on it, or like the campus women's center. Or even Wunk Sheek or something like that. And poor Wunk Sheek. I don't know what they're like now, but at that period of time Native Americans on campus is like less than a percentage of the population here at UW. And it's like literally they were more of a refuge than a student organization. It was like, the 10 of you. Literally, the 10 of you. That was kind of like, that's pretty much it. It's like, we have to import more people in if we're doing a program. [LAUGHS] And even though they shared-- well they actually had their space over there, but the multicultural center, they also had one of the little tables and stuff in the back student room at the multicultural center, nobody actually included them in any of their programming. It was like one of those things, like oh yeah, the Native Americans. It was just like, oh, they're just there, and whatnot. And the only event that I can really recall that they used to do on a regular basis was-- oh god, what do they call it? It's some fairly big-- actually, I don't know if they still do it. But it used to be this all these Native American dance type of thing where they'd bring a few people in from a couple of the different reservations here in Wisconsin or Minnesota or something like that. And it was actually a pretty cool event, but it was that one event per year, they imported most of the Native Americans to come to it. And a lot of the community people would come in to purchase pottery and beads and stuff like that, but hardly any students would come to it besides the Native American students. I don't think it was just us, but we definitely started working with them. The second year of the People of Color Speaker Series we made it a point to bring in a Native American woman as part of the speaker series, and to get them on board for that. It's like, we started promoting like, this is coming up, you have to do it. Not have to, it's not like we were forcing everybody, but it was kind of like, come on, it'll be fun. We'll go there, we'll hit the Barber's Closet afterwards. [LAUGHS] You just tag the Barber's Closet onto it at the end. Once their name started appearing on other stuff, then all of the sudden it's like all the other student organizations that they shared a room with was like, oh, maybe you can help cosponsor this event and stuff. So I do think we made that kind of difference. Because we were fairly gung ho about, well I see no reason why we shouldn't work with you. Well, with the exception of the very ardent Christian associations. But in terms of student of color organizations, the people with disability organizations, Joe and I used to just go and seek them out. It's like, wait, there's a students with disability organization? Let's go to a meeting. And it's like yeah, we have a couple books. And sometimes it was like little white lies. Afterwards we're like 9:00 AM, at the bookstore. Now we have a couple of books.  [LAUGHTER] 
JO:	 Quick, quick, get some books. 
01:33:05 
AA: 	I think from our generation of the Lesbian and Gay Campus Center, I think that was one of the things that we were good at. We were really good at pulling the other campus organizations together, at least in terms of them thinking about working together, or being strategic even if you don't really like the organization and stuff. Because you're not always going to like everybody. Sometimes if you're close enough on the same side, you just kind of need to work together. So I think that was our forte. 
JO:	 Absolutely. Sounds like you did it. 
AA: 	So outside of that, no, I can't think of anything. I don't know if you have any-- I can only remember some of the original board, so I don't know if you have any questions about that. 
01:34:03
JO:	 Well if you have any names of people you think would be good for us to talk to from that time, then that would be good for me to be able to go back and see if they're already on the list, and if they're not try to get in contact with them. 
AA: 	Well I can tell you that the people I remember, none of them are still in Madison. So I don't know if that matters to you [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. 
JO: 	I'm just a volunteer, so I'll let them decide whether they want to do phone interviews or something. 
AA: 	Right. So our original board, obviously Janice Sheppard. And I don't know if she's on your list, but she's still part of the UW system. But I don't think she's here in Madison anymore. So she was our representative from the Dean of Students office. And then of course Dean Mary Rouse was the dean back then. God, in terms of some of the members of the board, there was a David Wilcox. I don't know what the hell happened to him. 
JO: 	We'll see if we can track him down. 
AA: 	I'm trying to think. Tiffany Newby, she's in San Francisco, just got back from London, I think, a couple years ago or a year ago or so. Oh let's see. Juan's dead. Deborah Bay, she's in Washington, DC. We still talk. I don't really still talk to Tiffany but I do kind of keep track of her. We send the random email or something like that. Ray Hernandez, I don't know what the hell happened to him. He was in Chicago, because he did art, lesbian and gay art or something like that. He was in Chicago, then I think he was in Mexico for a while. And I don't know if he ever came back from Mexico or whatnot. I'm trying to think of who else. There was a Tori something her name. I think she was the director of the campus women's center. I don't know what her last name was. Sorry. There's two people I'm totally spacing. 
JO: 	That's fine. That's cool. That's cool. No, but these'll be some good people for me to-- I'll give them their names and we'll see if they want to give them a call and see if they might be interested in talking about that time. But thank you very much. I'm just going to go ahead and stop this here.