Q. What is a GLBT speaker panel program? How do I start one on my campus?

A. Speaker panels are educational interventions in which volunteer gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and supportive heterosexual allied people share their personal stories and respond to questions and comments from an audience. These panels are frequently used on a college/university campus to reduce homophobic/heterosexist attitudes. Often these panels are used in a classroom setting to provide personal experience in addition to course material.

Panels usually consist of 2 - 4 people that identity as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or a heterosexual ally. Panelists can be students, faculty, staff, or people in the local community. Coordination of a panel program can come from a student organization or university office. Coordination usually consists of recruiting new panelists, training, advertising, signing up panelists for panel dates, and evaluation. Some universities such as the University of Michigan offer academic credit for panelists.

Advertising of the program should go to residence halls, student organizations, as well as academic departments that include GLBT issues in course material. Many professors/instructors will be happy to utilize a panel as part of their course as long as they are aware of the program. As your panel program gains a reputation as a worthwhile educational intervention then many professors will plan a panel into their course syllabi every semester. Some departments to consider contacting for your panel program include: Counseling Psychology, Social Work, Education/Professional Development, Psychology, Women's Studies, Philosophy, and Sociology. Be creative and seek out specific courses that cover GLBT issues.

Helpful Resources to implement a panel program (Annotated):

Croteau, J.M. & Kusek, M.T. (1992). Gay and lesbian speaker panels: Implementation and research. Journal of Counseling & Development, 70, 396-400.

This article covers two basic and important areas, implementation and research, concerning GLB panel presentations. Student affairs professionals will find this helpful if they are assisting GLB students in organizing and training. The article covers previous research on attitude change after attending GLB panel presentations while making suggestions on how to implement panels. Although it does touch on how panelists should answer audience questions, it does not offer a typical listing of questions that may be asked.

Geasler, M. J., Croteau, J. M., Heineman, C. J., Edlund, C. J., (1995). A qualitative study of students* expression of change after attending panel presentations by lesbian, gay, bisexual speakers. Journal of College Student Development. 36 (5), 483-492.

Two-hundred sixty students who attended presentations by lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals were asked to write about their experiences. In this article, writings from these students were analyzed to determine how they perceived and explained their own changes as a result of attending the panel. Since this article provides examples of student responses to positive change after attending a panel it could be a good resource to help solicit panel presentations in a classroom setting.

Lucksted, A. (1998). Sexual orientation speakers bureaus. In Sanlo. R. (Ed.) Working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender college students: A handbook for faculty and administrators (pp. 352-362). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

A good starting place for those interested in developing their own panel program. This chapter covers different structural models, speakers, a basic panel, common questions, suggestions, and effects on the speakers. There is no specific mention of how to train or use heterosexual ally or transgender panelists.

Gray, J., & Poynter, K. (1996, October). Developing a speaker panel program to provide curriculum content on gay, lesbian and bisexual people in baccalaureate social work education, Paper presented at the 14th Annual Baccalaureate Program Directors Conference, Portland, Oregon.

This paper is a basic overview of how a panel program was used in social work courses. It also includes information on how the panel program was implemented and how the social work department allied itself with the campus GLBT student organization. Contact Judith I. Gray, Associate Professor, Dept Of Social Work, (765) 285-1012 or Email at 00jigray@bsu.edu.

McCord, D.M. & Herzog, H.A. (1991). What undergraduates want to know about homosexuality. Teaching of Psychology, 16, 243-244.

The best part of this article is that it is short, concise, and to the point. The authors collected about 300 questions prior to inviting a GLB panel into their psychology courses. The questions were placed into 13 separate categories and numerous examples are given. While GLB panelists will find the example questions helpful, professionals will find the article useful in preparation for GLB classroom presentations.

Poynter, K., Gray, J., & Zimmerman, J. (1996). Challenge bigotry: A training video and booklet for lesbian, bisexual, and gay speaker panels. Muncie, IN: Ball State University.

This is the only known resource available, a video and booklet, that documents how to implement, train panelists, and coordinate a panel program. A very good resource for common questions for GLB and ally panelists, example scripts to use, designing an evaluation component, major ideas to get across, and points to remember. Although this video/booklet includes information for supportive heterosexual ally panelists it does not include any information about transgender panelists. This is available from the office of Academic Research and Sponsored Programs at Ball State University by calling 765-285-1600. Profits from the sale of this video/booklet go to the campus LBGT student organization Spectrum. Cost for this video/booklet is modest at $50 for colleges/universities and $30 for student organizations.

SpeakOut, a Boston-based gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender speakers bureau, has distributed "Speaking Out: A Manual for Speaking on GLB Issues."

You can purchase a copy of their training manual ($30.00 plus $5.00 shipping & handling). For more information vist their website at www.speakoutboston.org

Submitted by Kerry Poynter. He may be reached at kpoynter@duke.edu

 

 

 

 

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