This year marks the 50th anniversary of LGBTQ+ students groups at Quinnipiac, and the school’s Gender Sexuality Alliance kicked it off by having a special guest stop by CCE 101 on April 8.
Robert Young has served as the Public Services Librarian for the Arnold Bernhard Library since July 1998, nearly 37 years. Young spoke at the Mount Carmel Auditorium to discuss LGBTQ+ history on campus.
The librarian compiled over 50 years of student archives from student media organizations such as the Quinnipiac Chronicle to create a brief history and timeline of LGBTQ+ student activities at Quinnipiac.
Creating the timeline was a complete accident. Young was actually looking for displays to create a travel guide for the library in 2019 when he discovered the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History had a traveling exhibit documenting the LGBTQ+ community in Connecticut, that’s when the dots connected.
“LGBTQ+ History Month is October,” Young said. “So I thought this would be a really interesting exhibit to have on display in the library in October.”
Young created a timeline to go along with the traveling exhibit, which eventually evolved into a much bigger project.
While the timeline originally started with the 1960s during the time of the Stonewall Riots, Young was eventually able to extend his timeline to mention the founding of Quinnipiac, or the Connecticut College of Commerce in 1929 with founder Samuel Tator.
“My initial timeline that I created was basically just text based,” Young said. “It was a list of events that occurred on campus seen primarily through the [Quinnipiac] Chronicle. In the last year we have revamped the timeline, you will now see new images and good photos that we were able to add.”
While there were many students in attendance, one in particular felt like the event shined more light on LGBTQ+ history at Quinnipiac than any other medium on campus.
“I took LGBTQ Identities and Communities in Spring 2025 and there were a lot of recurring topics like Stone Wall and the AIDS Crisis, but we never learned about LGBTQ history at Quinnipiac,” junior psychology major Delilah Papka said. “It was so interesting learning about the culture and history on campus of queer culture especially during two very pivotal moments in history.”
The timeline also now extends beyond LGBTQ+ history and extends to other activist topics such as Civil Rights and Black History Month. Young explained how it took him about a year to complete the entire project.
Young was even able to get past student experiences at Quinnipiac from people who identify as LGBTQ+. One of these students is Bob Williams, who graduated in the class of 1968.
Williams had described his experience at Quinnipiac as quiet, as he really didn’t know anyone at school who was gay. But one day he met his husband Doug in a foreign language class.
“They really hit it off,” Young said. “They became friends, and their friendship evolved into a relationship.”
Young also discussed the history of homophobia at Quinnipiac, and student efforts to combat it. As part of the timeline, the librarian compiled editorials and letters from the Quinnipiac Chronicle during the 1990s with the message of battling homophobia.
As of publishing, the digitized versions of these old Chronicle articles are not available to view publicly, however Young believes that these archives will be available to view by the Fall 2026 semester.
The event ended with Young and members of the GSA providing resources and support groups for members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“It’s important because [students need] support in the LGBQT+ community,” Young said.