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Gay Awareness Week successful, according to Whitsell

By Gary Suhl

Alestle Staff Writer, 5/9/74

Looking back at Gay Awareness Week, Larry Whitsell, president of Students for Gay liberation , (SGL), said he thought the event went quite well.

"What makes it successful is that a lot of people came to the discussions," he said. "We had set out to make people aware of the fact that there are gays, that gays' rights are taken away, and to show our side of the situation,"

"If people became aware of the problems, as many people apparently did, a indicated by the size of the crowds, we accomplished,what we wanted."

He said he did not expect the kind of hostility that was shown toward the gay speakers on Monday and Thursday.

"This is just a case of people over-reacting," Whitsell said. "It is the sort of thing you would have seen in Chicago or. New York about five years ago. Overall, this campus body is a little bit behind on issues."

"In general, the discussions covered what we had wanted to say. There was no way we could have covered everything that people may have wanted."

Right now, the SGL is trying to get feedback on the awareness week with evaluation sheets available to students.

Rick Whitsell, a member of the Student Senate, thought that the almost one thousand dollars appropriated for Gay Awareness week was to put to good use.

"Anytime you can get 500 people in the goshen Lounge for an activity, it's successful.

Bob Handy, director of the University Center, said he was impressed with the large amount of dialogue

"It gave the organization an opportunity to say what they felt, and I'm glad we did it," he said. "I think we all benefited from it."