superintendent, EMU Regent, and head of the National Association of Secondary School Principals— knows education. “I went to school the day after


Enough’s Enough T


Alumnus’ $1.5 million gift will help champion equality and human rights


by Jo Mathis


imothy Dyer (BA61, MA65)—former teacher, debate coach, principal,


Labor Day for 64 years,” says Dyer, 73, referring to the years between kindergarten and retirement. “Someone once joked that I must have been a slow learner.” Along the way, there was one


thing he learned particularly well. “One of the things I was taught


well in the history department at Eastern was how to observe,” he says, speaking by phone from his win- ter home in Phoenix. “That’s what historians are good at: observing, and accurately recording it. And one thing I learned was that there were serious consequences for people who admitted they were gay. So I lived it the way that society demand- ed it be lived.” That meant keeping quiet about


his sexual orientation. “It was a different era; a differ-


ent age,” he says. “I grew up in an age when everybody cared [about others’ sexuality]. They probably shouldn’t have, but they did care.


18 Eastern | WINTER 2011


And they made judgments. I sat in enough meetings, I listened to enough jokes, I was at enough faculty meetings where people openly made the most ignorant remarks I ever heard. That helped to train my line of thinking, too. I wish I’d been brave enough to have snapped them down. I did a couple of times, but most of the times I kept my mouth shut.” Dyer is encouraged that times


by Andrew Santella


have changed, but convinced there is more to do. That’s why he’s pledged that


upon his death, he’ll leave EMU a $1.5 million gift to establish the Dr. Timothy J. Dyer Distinguished Interdisciplinary Chair in Forensics/ Debate and Human Rights. The Chair will lead in the creation of the Center for the Study and Research of Equality and Human Rights in the College of Arts and Sciences. Center activities will be coordinated in the Department of Communication, Media and Theatre Arts in collabora- tion with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Resource Center and other academic units. Dyer hopes the Center will not


only benefit the state, but become a model for other centers across the country. Dennis Beagen, head of EMU’S


Department of Communication, Media and Theatre Arts, was among


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