News for CougGroup 6/27/2018

News for CougGroup 6/27/2018

Robin Held named executive director of WSU Schnitzer Museum of Art in Pullman

June 26, 2018 WSU Insider

PULLMAN, Wash. — Creative strategist and cultural entrepreneur Robin Held has been named executive director of the new Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on Washington State University’s Pullman campus.

Held, a veteran curator and accomplished fundraiser with 20 years of experience in the Seattle arts community, will start Aug. 7.

“Robin has a near-perfect skill-set to lead the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art into an exciting, evolutionary next chapter,” said WSU Provost and Executive Vice President Daniel J. Bernardo. “She is a bridge builder, an innovator, and an entrepreneur. She has significant and unique experience within higher education and the private sector and possesses an impressive curatorial resume.”

Currently serving as a consultant providing fundraising and strategic planning services for artists, entrepreneurs and others, Held’s experience also includes working with not-for-profit groups and projects focused on blending arts training with science, technology, engineering and math.

Previously, she served in various roles, including deputy director, at Seattle’s Frye Art Museum from 2004 to 2012, and as a curator with Henry Art Gallery at University of Washington from 1998-2005.

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art opened on the WSU Pullman campus in April and is Washington’s largest public fine-arts facility east of the Cascades. Featuring seven galleries and 14,000-square-feet of exhibit space, the $15 million facility was funded mostly through private donations and is named after businessman Jordan D. Schnitzer, who donated $5 million to the project.

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Schulz, WSU break ground on new plant sciences building

University begins V. Lane Rawlins Research and Education Complex

A group of administrators and state officials broke ground at the location of the new plant sciences building on June 28.

By IAN SMAY, Evergreen

June 27, 2018

WSU broke ground on its new plant sciences building, the V. Lane Rawlins Research and Education Complex, Wednesday morning.

The state of Washington will provide $52 million in funding for the project, according to a WSU news release.

President Kirk Schulz said the building will not only allow for further research, but also shows the level of work being done currently at the school.

“To get support,” he said, “[we] have to have great ideas and go sell them.”

Schulz, who gave thanks to many people ranging from state legislators to school faculty and staff, also said Washington is unique for being a state which financially supports higher education, leading to projects like the new building.

He also said WSU has benefitted from support from many outside sources, making these types of projects possible.

“We have people coming to the table with resources that have … allowed us to do some pretty wonderful things,” Schulz said.

He also said this outside support was important not only for students, but also for Washington’s farming industry.

“[They] keep us competitive so farmers and ranchers have the tools they need to be successful,” Schulz said.

CAHNRS Dean Andre-Denis Wright, who began his term a little under a month ago, also spoke at the ceremony and said the addition of new facilities helps with recruitment of high-level faculty.

“They allow us to attract and retain top-level scientists who know they have the tools and support to conduct ground-breaking research,” he said.

Schulz also spoke about recruitment and said this project has helped WSU reach the high level of student enrollment the university expects this year.

State Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, of Washington’s ninth legislative district, who Schulz named as a key force in obtaining the funding for the building, said the ground breaking is a “bright day for agriculture in Washington and the world,” as the research done at WSU affects practices around the globe.

Schoesler also pointed to the new Cosmic Crisp apple created by WSU as evidence of the level of research conducted at the university.

The other speaker was Mike LaPlant, president of the Washington Farm Bureau, who called WSU an “integral part of the agriculture industry.”

LaPlant also said the organization is looking forward to collaborating with the work conducted using the new facility in an effort to help ensure food security for people worldwide.

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WSU enrollment reaches record high

University to increase on-campus housing, hire more instructors

By Scott Jackson, Moscow Pullman Daily News staff writer Jun 27, 2018

Washington State University is shoring up staff and housing options in preparation for the largest influx of freshman students the school has seen in its 128-year history.

WSU Vice President of Marketing and Communication Phil Weiler said the previous record was set in the fall of 2015 with almost 4,200 new incoming freshmen.

"We're expecting this year will surpass that record by probably a good hundred students or more," Weiler said.

Weiler said since freshman students on WSU's Pullman campus are required to stay in residence halls for their first year, an important piece of preparation will be ensuring they have a place to live.

Associate Vice President of Housing Terry Boston said the university is taking a few major steps to increase the number of living spaces on campus. The most significant step may be the reopening historic Waller Hall, which has sat unoccupied for the past few years after attempts to renovate the structure were abandoned in 2015. Boston said efforts to refurbish the structure in time for the fall semester are already well under way.

"Waller was one of the original halls here on our campus and had a really long and sort of storied tradition at WSU," Weiler said. "Back in the day, Waller was the most preferred hall for male students, and the people who lived in Waller called themselves the gentleman of WSU."

Boston said his department will also be changing some rooms in existing dorms from single occupancy to double and possibly offering an option for triple residency at a reduced rate.

Weiler said the university has already told older students who may be seeking on-campus housing in the fall incoming freshmen will have priority. He said it is likely there will be space for sophomores and above, but many of them will be placed on wait lists and may need to look into off-campus options.

Tina Mitchell, a property manager with privately owned Coug Housing, said those students planning to live on campus who are wait-listed may already be too late to make other arrangements.

"The one bedrooms go really fast, so if they're looking for individual apartments, they need to act sooner," Mitchell said. "All the housing for the next school year will be rented primarily by March."

Mitchell said her organization, partially due to its close proximity to campus, has a 100 percent occupancy rate most years.

In addition to increasing the number of rooms available to incoming students, Weiler said WSU officials are working to bolster staffing for freshman classes. Weiler said the primary strategy to address the volume of students taking these courses will be to hire additional instructors. Weiler said WSU is also considering ways to use its current staff more efficiently and to encourage older students who still need those core credits to seek the classes online.

Pullman City Supervisor Adam Lincoln said a rising number of incoming students is a healthy component to Pullman's overall growth because it ushers in youth, energy and diverse ways of thinking.

"If anything, it's really good news that WSU is able to keep increasing their numbers, because that's not the case for many universities," Lincoln said. "I think it's great when we have more students coming to live in Pullman - it's definitely a benefit to our community."

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Cougar Football

Washington State quarterback Tyler Hilinski had signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) when he took his own life in January. While this revelation doesn't provide many answers, it does prompt copious questions.

By Matt Calkins Seattle Times columnist

Originally published June 26, 2018 at 8:51 pm Updated June 27, 2018 at 10:35 am

If you’re expecting solutions here, let me spare you the time. Those aren’t going to come within 24 hours of the latest

Surprising as it was to learn that the former Washington State quarterback had signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) when he took his own life in January, this revelation doesn’t provide many answers. It does prompt copious questions, though.

If you’re unfamiliar, CTE is a degenerative brain disease found in athletes (and others) with a history of excessive hits to the head. It has been associated with memory loss, depression, dementia, aggression, impaired judgment and other conditions.

Tyler Hilinski had signs of CTE at suicide, family says »

Brain disease seen in most football players in large report »

Death of a quarterback: Washington State’s Tyler Hilinski is laid to rest »

Though it can only be diagnosed postmortem, CTE has been discovered in the brains of hundreds of former NFL players. But for it to happen to a 21-year-old quarterback who only played 12 collegiate games, mostly as a backup?

How?

That’s what Dr. Julian Bailes, a neurosurgeon at NorthShore University HealthSystem in Chicago, wondered when he initially heard about Hilinski’s autopsy. Most examples of CTE are found in players who incessantly endured “sub-concussive” hits in practice and games throughout their relatively long careers. They aren’t found in second-stringers whose teammates weren’t allowed to touch them in practice.

Sure, Hilinski did tell his older brother about a hit that “rocked” him during WSU’s game against Arizona last season. And Tyler’s parents said that they started to notice changes in Hilinski’s behavior after that game.

But to make a boxing analogy, it isn’t typically the knockout blows researchers associate with CTE — it’s the 12 rounds of jabs that occur fight after fight.

That’s why Bailes wondered what else might have gone into Hilinski’s situation. Were there hits in high school that may have contributed? Factors outside of football? And perhaps biggest of all: How much of this was hereditary?

“This makes you wonder about the genetic aspects to CTE. Like everything in our health, whether it’s cancer or heart disease, these are genes we get from our parents,” Bailes said. “There’s not been a known gene that predisposes you to CTE. This is a very interesting case.”

Here’s another question: Could youth football have played a role? Remember, it was just a couple days ago that Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre said that Pop Warner should be outlawed. Hilinski played nothing but quarterback from high school on, but his parents did say he played linebacker in junior high.

Only problem is that it was only for a short time. And according to Bailes, youth players’ size and relative lack of velocity remove most of the head-injury risk.

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But is it possible that, despite Hilinski’s lack of exposure in college, CTE is just a whole lot easier to come by than most people think?

That’s what Chris Dore, a partner at Edelson PC contends. Dore’s law firm is involved in scores of class-action lawsuits filed against the NCAA by former football players who feel they are suffering from CTE. Memory-loss, depression, impaired judgment — Dore says all the symptoms are there.

“I’m not surprised in the slightest,” said Dore when asked about Hilinski having CTE. “It’s a tragic, terrible thing that happened, but unfortunately that can be expected from the disease.”

Again, though, there’s a problem: CTE can only be diagnosed postmortem. These former players might be suffering from the disease, but it’s impossible to say for sure (also, Dore had a bizarre theory that “behind closed doors,” Hilinski was getting hit in practice, so take his words how you will.)

And this leads to what is easily the most uncomfortable question yet: Should we be careful not to overreact to Hilinski’s diagnosis?

Tuesday, I came across an interesting piece from Yahoo! sports writer Eric Adelson, who wrote about some of the misconceptions surrounding CTE. Though doctors and scientists are glad that the risks of CTE via contact sports are coming to light, there was a thought that appropriate concern had morphed into counterproductive fear.

He told a story of an amateur athlete who, upon suffering from depression and memory-loss, was so convinced he had CTE that he took his own life. He actually had vasculitis, which was treatable.

In a column for the Huffington Post, Brooke de Lynch — director of the MomsTeam Institute and head-trauma educator — delved into similar territory. As part of an argument that the media’s CTE narrative is “literally scaring people to death,” she noted how former NHL player Todd Ewen also took his own life because he thought he had CTE, only for his postmortem autopsy to reveal he didn’t.

What happened to Tyler Hilinski was tragic, just as it was for Junior Seau and Dave Duerson — two former NFL players revealed to have had CTE after killing themselves. His age and position raised terrifying concerns about who this disease can afflict.

We don’t have answers or solutions yet. But we can’t stop asking questions until we do.

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SPORTS

Grip on Sports: CTE and the death of a young athlete

Wed., June 27, 2018, 8:16 a.m.

By Vince Grippi  Spokane S-R

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Yesterday was another tough day for fans of Washington State football. Heck, for all of us, really. Once again we are trying to answer a question that has deep import: How the heck do we get our arms around the effects of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy? Read on.

• The term CTE hasn’t been around all that long. But over the past decade we have become more aware of the brain disease and how it eats away at the mental health of its sufferers.

As research has been done and we’ve come to learn more about how continual trauma affects the progression of the disease, its changed the way football is practiced and played. But it hasn’t changed the bottom line: CTE is real and it is a curse for many former – and current – athletes.

The disease struck again yesterday, in the form of a well-planned and well-intentioned media blitz orchestrated by Tyler Hilinski’s parents.

As all of you know, Tyler committed suicide in Pullman on Jan. 16. Since then, Tyler’s parents, Mark and Kym Hilinski, have devoted themselves to ensuring what happened to their child doesn’t happen to anyone else’s. They have started a foundation, Hilinski’s Hope, to raise money for programs that will, according to its website, “help destigmatize mental illness.”

Yesterday, they were on NBC’s Today Show. They revealed there – and in a Sports Illustrated article that also was released yesterday – Tyler suffered from CTE. An autopsy performed by the Mayo Clinic revealed the disease. That's the only way, to date, we can be sure if one is suffering from CTE.

It is heartbreaking to watch the Hilinskis recount that terrible day and its aftermath. It is devastating to read about Tyler’s final hours. It is terrifying to wonder if anyone you know is suffering from a disease that is undetectable in the way we’ve come to expect from doctors and caregivers.

Heck, many of us have probably looked back at our own lives and wondered if we are susceptible. I know I have. In the past few years I’ve thought about the four concussions suffered before I turned 21 – the four that I can remember – and wonder if they make me a candidate for the disease.

But with knowledge comes power. That’s what the Hilinskis are trying to support. They have raised awareness of mental health problems among young athletes. They are helping to move the conversation forward on CTE. They are turning a tragedy into, well, what happened with Tyler is still a tragedy, but if it doesn’t happen to one other person due to their efforts, then there is at least some good coming from it.

And they are educating. We have a story in today’s S-R from reporter Rachel Alexander that delves into the science behind CTE and young athletes. It contains some information I didn’t know, information we all should know.

It wouldn’t have been available today if not for the Hilinskis’ efforts.

No matter the problem, it is always better to shine a light on it. Mark and Kym Hilinski are trying to do just that.

• So where do we go from here? If a player like Tyler Hilinski, who didn’t play one of the positions in football that involves consistent and repeated blows, can develop the disease, is anyone safe?

No one knows for sure. More research is needed. There may be many more reasons CTE occurs than just concussions or repeated blows or genetics. It may be sports such as football or soccer or others may have to evolve even more. It also may be they have already made the needed changes. We don’t know.

Like any disease, scientists and researchers attack, trying to decode its essence and then figure out how to combat it. That takes support, financial and otherwise. It also takes awareness and understanding.

CTE doesn’t cause its victims to grow extra limbs or anything. It’s not that easy to spot.

It manifests itself through changes in behavior. That’s where we all come in. Instead of shying away from identifying such changes and trying to ignore them, it’s about being a conduit for help. The changes may not be a manifestation of CTE. But they also may signal something else that can be helped.

“We need to erase the stigma,” Kym Hilinski said on the Today Show. “What we’re trying to do for our student-athletes is fund programs for their mental health. They need it.

“There’s not enough out there for these beautiful athletes that are so giving of themselves to colleges, but their minds aren’t taken care of.”

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Increasing number of young athletes, like Tyler Hilinski, suffering from CTE

UPDATED: Tue., June 26, 2018, 9:38 p.m.

By Rachel Alexander Spokane S-R

Tyler Hilinski was far from alone.

As researchers have moved beyond the NFL to look at the brains of high school and college athletes, they’re increasingly finding signs of traumatic brain injuries in young football players.

Hilinski’s parents said on “Today” that their son was diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a neurodegenerative disease caused by repetitive head trauma. The Washington State University quarterback killed himself early this year.

The disease, which can currently be diagnosed only after death, is the most serious condition on a list of impairments and diseases linked to repetitive head trauma.

It was diagnosed after death in an 18-year-old high school athlete whose family donated his brain to Boston University for study. The boy suffered multiple concussions while playing football, and his brain was the earliest evidence of CTE yet found in a human brain.

A 2015 Mayo Clinic study analyzing the donated brains of athletes who played contact sports in high school found CTE in one-third, compared to none in the non-athlete population. That was true even though 33 people out of the 198 in the non-athlete group had a documented one-time brain injury from causes including falls, motor vehicle accidents and assaults.

The telltale sign of CTE is a buildup of tau proteins in brain tissue, which cause the brain to shrink. That buildup can only be seen by cutting into the brain, hence the postmortem diagnosis.

Tau proteins are part of the structure of axons, helping to hold small, tube-like structures together. Repetitive blows to the head cause them to detach from the axons and break, forming tangled masses.

Dr. Bennet Omalu, the pathologist who first discovered CTE in the brain of former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, has since become an advocate for reforms in youth sports to limit contact and prevent brain damage.

Omalu has reported receiving calls from the parents of middle and high school athletes whose families are noticing changes in behavior following blows to the head. Many eerily mirror the symptoms of retired NFL players: difficulty focusing, increased aggression and irritability, and poor performance in school.

Though early discussion about head trauma in football centered around concussions, more research has shown that repetitive blows to the head, even if they don’t cause any symptoms at the time, may be the culprit. And head trauma is common in youth sports outside of football, including wrestling and soccer.

A concussion is a very broad term for any blow to the head or violent shaking of the head followed by symptoms like a headache, dizziness, nausea or memory problems. A “sub-concussive injury” is a blow to the head where no symptoms follow.

Boston University has become the leading national center on CTE research, with a brain bank program that examines the brains of former athletes and military members. A study published in January by BU researchers suggested CTE was linked to repetitive blows to the head, not to concussions.

WSU quarterback Tyler Hilinski suffered from CTE when he killed himself

Tyler Hilinski cemented his place in Washington State lore in September with a 22-yard touchdown pass to Jamal Morrow in double overtime to claim a 47-44 win over Boise State. | Read more »

Researchers induced head trauma in mice and observed their response, and also examined the brains of several young athletes who had died while recovering from head injuries. They found that early signs of CTE in the brain may be present even without outward signs of concussion following injury.

“The same brain pathology that we observed in teenagers after head injury was also present in head-injured mice,” said Lee Goldstein, a BU School of Medicine associate professor of psychiatry, in a news release about the study. “We were surprised that the brain pathology was unrelated to signs of concussion.”

About 20 percent of athletes who show early symptoms of CTE have never had a diagnosed concussion, BU says

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WSU quarterback Tyler Hilinski suffered from CTE when he killed himself

UPDATED: Tue., June 26, 2018, 11:06 p.m.

By Thomas Clouse Spokane S-R

Tyler Hilinski cemented his place in Washington State lore in September with a 22-yard touchdown pass to Jamal Morrow in double overtime to claim a 47-44 win over Boise State.

Four months later, the sophomore quarterback, who was set to take over Mike Leach’s vaunted Air Raid offense, took his own life with an AR-15 rifle he had borrowed from a former teammate. Now his parents have revealed in multiple interviews that Hilinski was found to have first-stage chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

“The medical examiner said he had the brain of a 65-year-old,” his father, Mark Hilinski, told NBC’s “Today.” “He was the sweetest, most outgoing, giving kid. That was difficult to hear.”

After Hilinski took his life Jan. 16, his parents said they were contacted by the Mayo Clinic to do a study of their son’s brain.

The results showed the 21-year-old was suffering from CTE, a degenerative brain disease that has been associated with repetitive brain injuries and has put the future of professional football in doubt.

“I mean, we were in complete shock,” Mark Hilinski told “Today.” “We wanted to know everything we could and find out anything we could. So we immediately said, ‘Sure … we’d like to know what we can find out.’ ”

The parents noted Tyler Hilinski hadn’t played that much college football.

A backup to Luke Falk, Hilinksi led the 21-point comeback victory against Boise State on Sept. 9 and played most of the game against Arizona, a 58-37 loss Oct. 28. With an injury to Falk, the Dec. 28 Holiday Bowl against Michigan State turned out to be Hilinski’s first and last start for the Cougars.

Reached by the Seattle Times, coach Mike Leach said WSU has already taken precautions to avoid exposing their quarterbacks to unnecessary hits.

“Our QBs don’t get hit in practice,” Leach told the Times. “They get hit less than any other position.”

He also responded to a question about CTE with questions of his own. “Are they saying that CTE caused this?” Leach asked the Times in a text. “What do doctors think? Is it possible to get CTE in a couple weeks? Or is this something that he possibly had since high school?”

In a statement, Washington State said the university has pledged to address the mental health needs of its players, saying it launched four new initiatives after Hilinski died.

Those new changes will include a second-formal mental health screening for all football team members and meetings with all varsity athletes to “help identify individuals who might be at risk for mental health issues,” the statement reads.

The university is also adding a full-time clinical psychologist to the Athletic Department and providing free access to Mental Health First Aid, a proactive intervention training for the entire student body.

Hilinski’s mother, Kym Hilinski, said the parents went back and looked for any hits or signs from their son that he was developing CTE.

“Of course, you go and you look at every piece. And there’s nothing really there,” she told “Today.” “Maybe there was comment made here and there. There are certain plays that you look at … certain hits that he took. But there weren’t really any verbal signs to us or to anybody at Washington State that he was suffering.”

The interview on “Today” follows the release of a documentary by Sports Illustrated about Hilinski and his family.

Increasing number of young athletes, like Tyler Hilinski, suffering from CTE

Tyler Hilinski was far from alone. As researchers have moved beyond the NFL to look at the brains of high school and college athletes, they’re increasingly finding signs of traumatic brain injuries in young football players. | Read more »

As a result of their loss, the Hilinski family has started the Hilinski’s Hope foundation. Its aim is to promote mental health among student athletes.

“People need to keep talking about suicide and mental illness and mental health. We need to erase the stigma,” Kym Hilinski told “Today.” “We’re trying to fund programs that support them and their mental health. They need it. There’s not enough out there for these beautiful athletes that give themselves to their colleges.”

As the Hilinskis, of Irvine, California, continue to deal with the loss of Tyler, their youngest of three sons, Ryan, recently committed to play for South Carolina.

Asked if she had reservations about letting Ryan play football, Kym Hilinski told “Today” that the family did a lot of research.

“Can CTE be tested in the living? It can’t,” she said. “Is there a genetic or hereditary link? They’re not sure. We had to find out as much information as we can, talk to experts and let Ryan know.”

Ryan, according to his Twitter account, wants to play to honor his brother.

“I’m all bought into football, and I think Tyler would want me to do the same thing,” Ryan Hilinski tweeted. “I don’t think he’d want me to stop.”

In another tweet, Ryan Hilinski said he has been blessed with talents “that cannot be wasted.

“We may never know the reason why Ty did what he did but we know how we can continue to make him happy even when he’s not here,” he wrote. “If you are ever suffering, reach out to someone close, call the suicide hotline because You are MORE!”

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Finding identity and expression at WSU

June 27, 2018

By Brian Charles Clark, Washington State Magazine

Bob Dlugosh says that he and his roommate, Al, “were always chumming around Pullman together.” Best friends, Bob figured Al for straight, but he liked the guy so much he didn’t let it bother him. Bob did wonder if Al knew he was gay. In 1968, “gay” felt like a brand new word. So it probably wasn’t the one used on the sign Al and Bob found tacked to their Stephenson Hall door: “Bob and Al are gay.”

But that’s what Robert Dlugosh ’71 recalls decades later. The noun was probably something from the much crueler vernacular of the day: They were being called faggots, queers, fairies. Al brushed it off, Dlugosh says, and the friends roomed together until graduation. In recalling the sign of aggression, Dlugosh, too, brushes it off. Others had it much worse than him. He has “warm and fuzzy feelings” for the University. Dlugosh, an activist-through-education and Seattle architect, and his husband, Don McKee, now endow a scholarship for LGBTQ — lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer — students at Washington State University.

For Prudence Miles ’77, being outed wasn’t a homophobic attack, but an act of defiance. Although open about her orientation, she only shared that with a small group of other gay and lesbian students, staff, and faculty. But one day the editors of WSU’s student newspaper, The Evergreen, published a letter by one of that small group. Prudence’s name was on the list of signatories.

“There was little me,” she recalls, “eating breakfast in the Regent’s Hall dining room, suddenly seeing this letter with my name attached to it. Probably 99 percent of the women in the room didn’t care or didn’t know who I was — but it was a public outing that I had not expected.” She says she was already a member of the Gay People’s Alliance, one of the first activist and awareness groups at WSU, and had volunteered for its speakers bureau. She got pretty good at answering the question, what’s it like to be a lesbian?

Becca Prescott ’12 came out in the safety of the Gender Identity/Expression and Sexual Orientation Resource Center: GIESORC (“gee-sork”), or just the Center. She discovered she was a lesbian while in college. Friends she made at the Center on the fourth floor of the CUB, along with the staff there, shared experiences and insights “about what being gay meant, and why people are that way,” she says from her parents’ home in Montana, on break from nursing school in Oakland, California. During her college years, it was precisely going home she stressed about. Her mother, especially, was having difficulty accepting her daughter’s orientation, fearing she had made some terrible error in rearing her child.

“Having that conversation at the Center made me more confident in having that conversation with my family,” she says, just before she heads out the door to go skiing with her dad.

Harvey Milk, the San Francisco city supervisor and first openly gay elected official in California, urged his “brothers and sisters” to come out “for your sake,” and for the sake of friends, family, and coworkers. “I know that it is hard and will hurt them,” he said in a 1978 speech. “Come out [and] once and for all, break down the myths. Destroy the lies and distortions.” Milk urged people to come out at least to those they knew well, because coming out is a tonic for homophobia.

Coming out is how community is created among a very diverse group of sexual minorities. But it is no guarantee; it can be, as Milk acknowledged that day, dangerous. Later in 1978, Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were gunned down in San Francisco City Hall, murdered by Dan White.

Opening a door

Becca Prescott learned a cool new word: “queero,” queer + hero. The portmanteau, coined by comedian Cameron Esposito on her podcast, Queery, refers to activists such as Harvey Milk, Ellen DeGeneres, or Esposito herself. Much closer to home though, there is the quotidian grind and exaltation of “the little things,” says Melynda Huskey, the first permanent director of the Center. That we can discover our orientations and identities at all in such an overwhelmingly straight, gender-binary—and frequently violently homophobic — culture is the real act of heroism. Huskey recalls students who walked past the always-open door of the Center, time and again, sometimes slowing down, maybe peering in. But only some ever made it in.

That door, always open, is not just a metaphor for LGBTQ community; it really is one of the entrances to queer culture at WSU.

As Paul Kwon, a psychology professor at WSU Pullman, says, partaking in community — having people to talk to and allies to count on — is the most important factor in the resilience of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. Minorities have forever formed communities, when possible, trying to strike an equitable equilibrium with the dominant culture.

Matthew Jeffries, the Center’s current director, says that because Washington state—and Washington State University — have long been models of inclusion and diversity, we have a responsibility to keep striving for civil rights for all.

But WSU and the state weren’t always that way. Just this year, Washington state legislators finally passed a bill that outlaws conversion therapy, a long-disproven “cure” for emergent, juvenile homosexuality that’s still legal in 40 other states.

Dlugosh summarizes the situation in Pullman in the late ’60s, but he might be talking about just about anywhere in the United States other than a few major urban centers — such as San Francisco, New York, and Seattle. He hesitates, then says, “How do I put this? I knew some other gay people — I mean, they seemed gay to me but we never talked about it. It was very frustrating for all of us students.” Dlugosh’s recollection is that there was no gay liberation movement, as it was only beginning to be called, during his years in Pullman.

Alumni mentioned in various Evergreen articles, and especially in the student newspaper’s letters section, are difficult to find. Dlugosh says that when he tried to kickstart an LGBT alumni group, “we found [many alumni] had a bad taste in their mouth for WSU not being very progressive back in those days. They did not have warm and fuzzy feelings.” It’s not surprising; the virulent homophobia in some of the letters the Evergreen published from the early 1970s until as recently as the late 1990s is sometimes horrifying. To the paper’s credit, the editorials were mostly in favor of giving gay people that right to live — a “right” as ominous as it sounds — and have at least some civil rights (if not all the rights, such as to not be fired from a job for one’s sexual identity).

Dlugosh graduated in 1971. By the time Prudence Miles got to Pullman in 1973, things were perking up. She says she must have seen a poster for Gay Awareness and started going to meetings. Then, as now, what to call an alliance as diverse as a group of sexual minorities was always a struggle, so in the Evergreen, this group, or perhaps another, also went by Gay Alliance or Gay People’s Alliance, with the name gradually becoming more inclusive over the years as it became more inclusive of identities.

In any case, Miles was soon part of what was then a community transitioning from “protective invisibility” to out, proud, and loud. She misses the diversity of what was then a sort of secretive social club. Secretive for self-defense, but it was nevertheless a group of people who spent their time rapping about awareness, rights, and the simple observation that coming out to people changed minds and softened hard hearts. That’s why, she says, “there were a group of us who were willing to go out and talk when asked.”

The Gay Alliance’s speakers bureau would do interviews on the campus radio station, or give talks and answer questions at residence halls and sorority and fraternity houses.

“Human sexuality classes always wanted gay people to come and talk,” Miles recalls. “You try to talk to people: it’s not scary and it’s not going to change who you are if somebody you know is gay. You’re the same, they’re the same. It’s just, they’re in love with somebody different.”

Miles spoke up because of the tonic effect of coming out. Even more important, she says, “You never know if someone in that room is scared and questioning. They need to hear it’s OK.”

Community as resilience

The letter to the Evergreen where Miles’ name was signed really sticks out as a sign of just how bad things were for LGBTQ people in the 1970s. Published on December 4, 1973—while Miles was still in her first semester of college—the letter refers to an ASWSU survey asking if gay people should have “the equal rights supposedly guaranteed to all human beings.” A majority of respondents said no, gay people should not have basic human rights. But, the letter writers say, here’s “a good word for the ASWSU Assembly” for arguing otherwise and counting LGBTQ people among the human.

For his part, Dlugosh says he worked at passing for straight: the best defense against homophobia was camouflage. For many people, it still is; Becca Prescott is quite candid about that. But that approach to life results in an internal self-conflict that degrades mental and emotional health.

An anonymous interview in a video produced in 1977 by KUID called “From Sweet Land of Liberty: Moscow/Pullman Gay Community” captures this double consciousness perfectly. The interview subject is in shadow, but clearly bearded and, says the on-camera reporter, a faculty member, likely from the University of Idaho. “You have to establish a dual personality,” the man in the shadows says. You have to have a straight face that you put on “so you can go out and cope and function with straight people. And then, somewhere between your house and the office, you become somebody else, the person who no longer plays games with himself.”

“What if you were discovered?” the interviewer asks. “I’d be fired immediately. Shock and appall by my colleagues. My students would freak out. My parents don’t know, and it would be really difficult to tell them. My father would disown me. I’d like to stop being a dual personality… . It’s a lonely life.”

Lonely, and not at all healthy. Minority stress is the fracture line between a stigmatized minority and the dominant culture. It drives its victims to drugs and suicide at a much higher rate than the straight, white population.

Kwon enumerates the factors that defuse the chronic wear and tear caused by minority stress and that help create resilience. The most important, he says, is having a social support network, being connected to a positive community. Having hope and optimism about the future, where oppressors have a change of heart, and being emotionally aware are the other two major contributors to resilience and mental health.

Emotional self-awareness is a little counterintuitive, Kwon says. “If someone is targeted with an insult, the intuitive thing might be to immediately push your emotions aside, to try to not feel bad about what just happened. But what we know in psychology is that kind of emotional suppression is more damaging than accepting that there are going to be some uncomfortable emotions, and that we need to process and spend time and deal with those emotions wisely.” And, he says, “rates of mental health disorders are about twice in LGB folks — I suspect it would be even higher in trans folks — compared to non-LBGT individuals.

“Some sources of minority stress can be very blatant,” Kwon continues, “like having laws that are discriminatory. But it’s also more subtle, just feeling that you can’t be yourself, that you have to conceal your identity. Or if you see negative messages in the media, or even overhear a remark that’s not personally directed at you, it still impacts your sense of being OK with who you are.”

A 2016 WSU Health and Wellness Services survey indicates just how many people are potentially affected by minority stress resulting from homophobia and microaggression. Nearly 15 percent of student respondents indicated they were not heterosexual.

Miles remembers the excitement of discovering that the LGBTQ community was blossoming into a social movement in the early 1970s. “A woman friend called me up and said, ‘Come over, come over!’ She had this album of women’s music! Women singing about women!” Miles and her friends would sit and listen to Lavender Jane Loves Women, Meg Christian, Ferron, and many other voices that found their way to vinyl via a burgeoning network of labels and festivals.

“We knew we were becoming more visible and we believed in possibilities,” Miles says. “And I think over the years we’ve gotten a lot of those possibilities but with it has come pain.”

The pain comes in the form of a seemingly endless backlash. According to a classic definition of prejudice by psychologist Gordon Allport, backlash is due to the fact that “prejudice treats persons as categories rather than as individuals. Because someone is black, female, homosexual, and so forth, the prejudiced person needs no further information on which to base his evaluations and behavior…. A summarizing, administrative spirit prevails.”

Prejudice, including homophobia, has little to do with facts and everything to do with categorizing nemeses. Instead of a life-affirming view of the world where other people are a potential source of support, people who suffer from prejudice, writes Thomas Henricks in a 2016 Psychology Today article that expands on Allport’s analysis, “preoccupy themselves with social competition. Life strategies center on victory and defeat, offense and defense. Resources are comprehended as difficult-to-attain prizes, awarded to individuals and their allies.”

As Kwon says, “Part of what I teach in my diversity class is the idea of privilege, the unconferred advantage that certain people have based on their demographics. I think what we’ve seen is that people are extremely reluctant to give up their privilege. And I think that is what results in this kind of backlash. People in power feel they are losing that kind of privilege and they retaliate by reinforcing that privilege. I think we know prejudice rises when there is more competition over scarce resources.”

Matthew Jeffries concurs that education is important. One of the goals of the Center’s work is to offer workshops and trainings that educate faculty, staff, and students about the realities of being a minority. “We are here to create cognitive dissonance in students, so that the next time they think before speaking: ‘Oh, maybe I shouldn’t say “That’s so gay.”’ We can’t unlearn behaviors for students that they’ve acquired over 20 years. But even tiny shifts in the way people go about the world — I’ll take that.”

Just as gendered language is a constant source of microaggressions against women, so too are all the default heteronormative things we say and do that ramp up minority stress; it’s death by a thousand cuts as your true self is again and again diminished and erased—or worse. Violent crimes against sexual minorities are on the rise, according to studies by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Human Rights Campaign. Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the SPLC, wrote that “LGBT people are more than twice as likely to be the target of a violent hate-crime than Jews or black people.”

And a lot of that violence is invisible. It does not rise to the scale of the 2016 mass murder at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, but is rather in homes, highways, streets, and schools, according to the HRC study.

But it’s hardly a competition to see who can suffer the most. One of the great realizations of the past few decades has been the idea of “intersectionality.” The term was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a Columbia Law School professor, in a 1998 paper that sought to illuminate the oppression of African-American women. The term has since been taken up by those seeking to elucidate the inherently intertwined workings of prejudice against all minorities. The result has been a networking of minorities and their allies fighting together against racial and identity oppression.

As Jeffries says, “The major issues are really intersectional. It’s not just that they’re LGBT, it’s they’re LGBT and a student of color. That adds a lot of complexity and creates a lot of work on their part.” It’s as Margot Lee Shetterly wrote in Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race, about the women who were working in a Jim Crow, male-dominated world: They had to work twice as hard to get half as much.

The summer that Becca Prescott read The Laramie Project—the play about the brutal murder of a gay man, Matthew Shepard, in Wyoming—she realized that her personal experience intersects with those of people in the LGBTQ community as well as other minorities. “The community is so incredibly diverse,” she says, as she realized that “if I’m going to be an ally to other parts of the community, it is going to take educating myself.” One of the ways she does that is by reading, networking, and, yes, listening to podcasts, such as Cameron Esposito’s Queery.

Even before the word intersectionality was coined by Crenshaw, students at WSU have been working in that direction. Melynda Huskey recalls that “we had a Filipina student who worked with students and me to put together something called Brown and Out,” in 1997. “It was an opportunity to bring together white LGBT students, LGBT students of color, and students of color who did not identify as LGBT for a facilitated discussion about being your full self in all places.” Huskey says that Brown and Out was part of the reason that the Center, after the CUB was remodeled, moved to the fourth floor, “the same floor as all the multicultural student centers because there’s a large community of folks with many identities who needed support.”

Challenging the future

Civil rights for LGBTQ people are improving, at least in Washington. WSU has certainly played a significant role in that progress. WSU ranks among the top 25 in the national Campus Pride Index for its progressive policies and support networks. But, as Nolan Yaws-Gonzalez says, the support is uneven across WSU’s campuses.

Based at WSU Vancouver, where he is the assistant manager of student services, Yaws-Gonzalez is also a member of the President’s Commission for Gender Identity/Expression and Sexual Orientation, which has representatives from every WSU campus. The commission advocates for policies that contribute to a positive campus climate for LGBTQ people. One of the goals is to be less reactive and more proactive, Yaws-Gonzalez says.

“If people want to come to a meeting and raise things, to ask us to partner, we want that,” he says. “There’s a lot of people with a lot of energy and motivation on the campuses” and the commission wants to tap into that.

As hopeful as conditions are in Washington, Huskey points out that we still have a long way to go. “In the U.S. we are now seeing significant pushback around LGBT civil rights. We thought marriage was settled but it is not clear to me that it is going to stay settled. We have not achieved solid employment rights at a national level. There are many states where it is still perfectly legal to terminate someone from their job for the non-job-performance related fact that they have an LGBT identity.

“We have enjoyed civil rights for such a short period of time,” it’s hard to see them start to slip away. “It’s one thing for someone of my age. I went for a long time without the right to be married or for my children to be the children of both of their parents. But for young people—they started out thinking they would have those rights and to lose them is much harder if you didn’t know that could happen. We’ve got to move forward.”

Kwon says that “folks have been inspired to be more vocal, to be more active politically… . But it’s draining, and you hear that all the time. People who are really making those efforts are just exhausted.” Kwon, who offers counseling services one day a week in Lewiston, Idaho, admits to sometimes feeling “paralyzed by what is going on nationally or even statewide.” So he focuses on those things where he can make a difference: teaching and working with clients. And reminding people to build community, be emotionally self-aware, and have hope.

Prudence Miles offers a ray of hope.

“I work for Seattle Parks and Recreation, and I had a funny thing happen recently. I was at the bus stop. Quarter of seven, it’s dark. This random man walked up to me, looked at me, and said, ‘Your girlfriend’s cheating on you.’ I had headphones on, and was like, I’m not engaging with you. But I was telling people at work about it and my boss, a straight woman, immediately quipped, ‘Your girlfriend’s cheating on you? Does your wife know?’ And I just cracked up! That kind of casual comment at work!

“When I think about times in the past when I was so scared at work, when I was closeted. It’s just so nice to just be who we are.”

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2018 issue of Washington State Magazine.