Feb. 26, 2008

Dr. Pat Griffin, a recognized speaker, educator and author on the topics of heterosexism and homophobia in sport, will visit Penn State Athletics for two separate special events on the last day of February.

Currently the Director of It Takes a Team! Education Campaign for LGBT Issues in Sport, Dr. Griffin will share her vast experience and knowledge with the ICA staff at a 7:30am breakfast in the Bryce Jordan Center, followed by an opportunity to discuss these important topics with Penn State's student-athletes over lunch in the East Area Locker room Auditorium, beginning at 11:30.

In addition to her status as Emerita Professor at University of Massachusetts at Amherst and her Directorship highlighted above, Dr. Griffin spends much of her time hosting seminars on college campuses throughout the United States and Canada. In addition to heterosexism and homophobia in athletics, her research and writing interests focus on LGBT students and teachers, and has shared her respected views on ESPN Outside the Lines, HBO Real Sports and ABC Sports.

A former student-athlete herself at University of Maryland, Dr. Griffin has coached at both the high school and collegiate level and was a member of the 1971 U.S. Field Hockey Team. She also earned bronze and gold medals in the 1994 and 1998 Gay Games in the triathlon and hammer throw, respectively.

Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics is dedicated to conceiving and promoting initiatives that facilitate the principles of diversity and inclusion. The highest priority is to establish a climate of mutual respect and support of individual differences where persons of dissimilar color, creed, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, physical/mental ability and ethnicity can maximize their full potential and function as a cohesive group, free of prejudice, discrimination and harassment.