Kris Gandara, Joy Ritchie to receive GLBT Awards

Graduate student Kris Gandara and Joy Ritchie, professor of English and director of the Women's Studies Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will receive the 2005 Chancellor's Awards for Outstanding Contributions to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community at UNL

Chancellor Harvey Perlman will present the awards April 8 in a ceremony beginning at 3:30 p.m. in the Nebraska Union, 1400 R St. The ceremony and a reception following are free and open to the public.

Gandara will be honored for her efforts as both an undergraduate and graduate student to ensure GLBT issues and speakers are visible and regular parts of campus activities. Those efforts include organizing visits and lectures by writer and performance artist Nomy Lamm, Dawn Atkins, editor of the book "Looking Queer," and most-recently, author Dorothy Allison for Women's History Month in March. Gandara has also been active in curricular activities, working with Ritchie to write a successful seed grant to fund planning for a GLBT minor and was appointed graduate assistant for the project last year. As a teaching intern in the English Department, she is credited by her supervisor with challenging and mentoring her students "toward a vision of the world which is wider than the one with which they enter the class."

Ritchie, who has taught at UNL since 1982, will be honored for her many years of active service on the UNL Committee on GLBT Concerns and her efforts for inclusiveness in other university activities. As a member of the Chancellor's Commission on the Status of Women, she has ensured that issues of particular interest to GLBT people, such as domestic partner benefits, remain priorities. Under Ritchie, the Women's Studies Program has been a leader in curricular and cocurricular GLBT programming, working to establish the GLBT minor and bringing prominent speakers and scholars on GLBT issues to campus.

The annual award recognizes outstanding efforts by an individual or an organization to create an inclusive, respectful and safe climate for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people at UNL.

CONTACT: Robin Whisman, GLBT Award Co-Chair, (402) 472-4769; or Vernon Williams, GLBT Award Co-Chair, (402) 472-4354