The keynote speaker of the weekend was Judy Shepard, who lectured to an audience of approximately 350 at Johnson Chapel. Shepard is the mother of Matthew Shepard, who was murdered at the University of Wyoming in 1998 in a hate crime because he was gay. (See "Shepard speaks out on son's murder, page 1)
One of the first lectures of the weekend was the Gallery Talk given by Geoffrey Hendricks '53.
Hendricks spoke about an exhibition of which he is the curator and certain aspects of the exhibition that deal with homosexuality.
On Saturday, Eric Thalasinos '02 presented his senior thesis, the Gay History of Amherst College and the Pioneer Valley.
The presentation was followed by a forum with six alumni speaking on the topic of "Being Queer in the Workplace."
The alumni speakers ranged from Bob Corcoran '85, vice-president of the Fixed Income Product Development at Fidelity Personal Investments, to Peter Shearer '89, associate residency director of emergency medicine at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.
At 4:30 p.m., Kevin K. Kumashrio, Ph.D., spoke about issues faced by homosexual Asian Americans.
"The main purpose of the weekend is to connect GLBT alumni with current GLBT students. It's really important to see and talk with adults who are out," said Pem Brown '06, one of the students who organized the weekend. "By sharing their experiences, they can act as role models and to let students know that they can live their lives openly and still be successful."
The Pride Alliance is having a follow-up discussion tonight April 16 at 9 p.m. in the McCaffrey Room. "[We will] discuss what [Shepard] spoke about and how we can ensure that Amherst is a safe campus for everyone," said Brown.