BiGLATA-Dively Summer Interns

BiGLATA and Michael Dively '61 have endowed two annual summer internships for current Williams students. They provide financial assistance to students in good standing who undertake an internship that serves to increase their awareness about their sexuality and society's awareness about and acceptance of people who are gay, lesbian, transgendered, or bisexual.

The deadline for application is mid January. The interns are selected after on-campus interviews in early February. Applicants are evaluated on the quality and creativity of their proposed projects and are required to work with a faculty or other adult mentor throughout the summer to ensure that they meet their goals and stick with proposed timetables. The winners of the internships are announced in early March.

For more information on the internships, visit the OCC Alumni Sponsored Internship Program page at http://www.williams.edu/go/careers/alumni_sponsored.php.

---

2007 BiGLATA-Dively Summer Interns

Once again this year, contributions from BiGLATA members allowed two remarkable Williams students to spend the summer pursuing projects related to sexuality and gender.

Eric Bautisa will be working with the Director of Education at AIDS Project Los Angeles.  Incidently, that same person is also the Director of the Institute for Gay Men's Health. Los Angeles currently is lacking a program specifically tailored to ethnic gay minorities.  Eric's first project will involve establishing a gay resource center targeting ethnic minorities. His second project will be researching and implementing strategies to "place the global needs of gay men on the agenda of health professions even in hostile cultural environments".

Raffana Donelson is planning to complete a fictional novella based on the "tragedy involving a homosexual main character".  His objective is to "question societies instinctive judgements about right and wrong".  Through his writing Raffana wants to "depict a world in which the fulfillment of prima facie moral obligations produces more problems than benefits.

---

Past Intern Projects

2002 BiGLATA-Dively Summer Interns

Once again this year, contributions from BiGLATA members allowed two remarkable Williams students to spend the summer pursuing projects related to sexuality and gender.

Emily Martin '03, the BiGLATA intern, designed and led adult Sunday school classes in three Alabama churches focusing on sexuality and the Bible. Martin said the goal of her project was to "open up the discussion of Biblical interpretation beyond the handful of prohibitions typically cited in sexuality debates."

Abigail Jackson '02, the Dively intern, researched black gay male sexuality in dance while spending her summer at the prestigious Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Beckett, Massachusetts. Jackson used her funding to delve into a world where race, sexuality, and the arts intersect in unique ways. Her research focused on Alvin Ailey, Bill T. Jones, and Ronald K. Brown. It culminated in a report at the end of the summer.

---

2001 BiGLATA-Dively Summer Interns

Two extraordinary - and extraordinarily different - projects were undertaken by BiGLATA-Dively interns in the summer of 2001:

Kristin Engelbrecht-Bleem '04 spent June and July on the road (and in the air), traveling to places as diverse as Sicily, Italy, Central Oregon, and an Anglican monastery near Santa Barbara, California. Kristin, an accomplished poet, used these experiences as the foundation for a new collection of poems, which she self-published in a book called Cistern Citrus at the end of the summer.

Melissa Purdy '02 took to the road as well, spending weeks with the elite wildland firefighters of Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho. Purdy brought along her video camera and recorded the crews' activities, as well as their thoughts on gender and sexuality. She created a 40 minute video from her footage.