From the Editor

Several years ago at Reunions, I was in the audience when an older alumnus stood up after a panel discussion about student life and talked about his own Princeton experience, which was a lonely one.

The alumnus was gay. In college, he said, he had thought he was the only gay student on campus, though he later learned that this was not true. He was happy now, he said, and the Reunions audience that day seemed happy for him, too.

For our cover story (page 22), Richard Just ’01, a journalist and the vice chairman of PAW’s advisory board, spoke with other older gay alumni. Like the alumnus who spoke at Reunions, some of these graduates felt completely alone on campus; others found deep friendships and love. Most have complex feelings about their time at the University.

Edmund White

PHOTO: DAN CALLISTER/AP IMAGES

Beginning on Thursday, April 11, Princeton will host its first conference for LGBT alumni. The program illustrates the significant contributions that LGBT alumni and faculty have made to Princeton. It begins with a tour of the famous outdoor sculpture collection donated by physicist Peter Putnam ’46 *50, who also funded projects in the physics department and Firestone Library. It continues with ­presentations by some of Princeton’s best-known ­faculty members, including novelist Edmund White, whose work draws heavily on his life as a gay man. It concludes with talks by alumni engaged in activism, the arts, and politics at the national level.

Of course, Princeton’s student body always has included gay students — and more recently, lesbian students — even if the students kept it hidden. With this conference, the University recognizes what they have contributed, often quietly, for so long.