LETTERS
Changing times

---

I was so glad to read "Out and About: Mentoring program helps students get comfortable with their sexual identities" in the February issue ("College Report"). Anyone who remembers the threats against gay students in 1991, when many of us protested that the administration was not doing enough to respond, knows how much the University has changed in only a decade.

Thanks to an ad hoc committee, domestic-partnership benefits were extended to same-sex couples a few years later. But even when I was a staff member in the mid-1990s, it was not thought that faculty, staff, and students had much to offer each other. One member of what had become Q & A told me then that there was concern some staff or faculty might try to take advantage of students. This struck me as ironic, not only because it had never stopped straight faculty and staff from serving as mentors, but because I was younger than most graduate students with whom I was working. It's very gratifying to know that members of the University community today are sharing opportunities we missed.

Jacqueline E. Knowles, AB'94
Toronto

---