Oral History with Mark Weber, March 26, 2015 (Ms2015-007)

Partial Transcript: Tamara Kennelly: Today is March 26, 2015. My name is Tamara Kennelly, and I am here with Mark Weber. Would you please say your full name and if you don’t mind when you were born.
Mark Weber: Okay. It’s Mark Alan Weber and December 20th 1963.

Partial Transcript: WEBER: I was born in Northern Virginia; I would say middle class family. My father worked for the federal government and my mother was a housewife. We grew up with everything we needed, not too much more. In terms of our lifestyle, the annual family vacation, good schools in Fairfax County, and going to church every Sunday.

Partial Transcript: KENNELLY: How do you identify your own sexual preferences?
WEBER: Gay male.
KENNELLY: Is there a community or communities that you identify with particularly?

Partial Transcript: WEBER: Sure. So, how far back—I had a very good friend in the seventh grade, and he and I were obviously attracted to each other, and we began to explore our sexuality together. That ended up being, I would say, a long-term sexual relationship all through junior high and high school. At that point in time and sort of in line with our conversation here, I didn’t identify myself as gay.

Partial Transcript: Then when I came to Virginia Tech it was isolating again. My friend Steven had gone off to the West Coast, my friend Ken had gone to UVA and I was here. The only people that I knew here, to use all the labels, were straight friends that I wasn’t out to at that point in time. I moved into Lee Hall, and it was— just the overwhelming task of acclimating to college, university life the transition again from high school to university classes.

Keywords: college

Partial Transcript: and at that point in time, Lambda Horizon was just getting started, and Bill Daly approached me about being secretary of the group. I agreed, I really can’t remember the details of how it all came about, but I agreed to do it, and soon after that a gentleman by the name of Greg Edwards who was writing for the CT [Collegiate Times] started to do a series of articles on Lambda Horizon and what we were doing and what it was all about.

Partial Transcript: that was when AIDS came onto the scene. I remember people saying to me here, “That’s something that happens in the big cities; we don’t need to worry about it here in Blacksburg.” It was like in New York and San Francisco, then it spread L.A., Washington, cities all over. When you’re in such denial about so many things, and life is—I can’t quite think of the right word— life is what it is as a college student. Those are things that are way far away, but I remember the conversations, and it was a little scary, but it wasn’t here in Blacksburg.

Partial Transcript: That was in ’84/’85, and that was the year we really started getting serious about well what is it we’re doing, and why are we doing it, and why are we meeting off campus? That was a real struggle, and I remember I specifically adopted an approach, and it still comes up today in situations. It’s like we’re a student group like any other group of students. We’re here to learn; we’re here to laugh. We’re here to screw around a little, drink a little, and whatever else comes along with that. We deserved to be treated just like any other student, and that was my core belief.

Partial Transcript: The other thing that I remember doing is Doctor Ruth came to Virginia Tech to speak, and she was quite scandalous with her frank sex talks. Of course, probably by today’s standards, probably pretty mild. I haven’t looked back to hear about the things she’s said. So a whole big group of us, like other student groups, wanted to go together to see her at Burruss auditorium. So I went to the Virginia Tech Student Union, I think that’s what it was called—it may still be called that. I said, “I want a group of tickets for this student group, the gay student group.” They said, “Well we don’t really have a way to do this, blah, blah, blah.”

Partial Transcript: ’85-’86 we decided to get really serious about HIV AIDS. This was something that was impacting the community. It impacted the health of students. Again, we’re students. I know we were LGBT students, but we were students first with the LGBT afterwards.

Partial Transcript: Part of this whole effort culminated in an AIDS education forum here. It was in McBryde Hall March 1986, I’m pretty sure. It may have been March 3rd if I can remember that correctly. We brought in experts from around the country to speak about what was happening, the virus, how it was spread, what was known at that point in time. At that point in time, if you became infected, it pretty much meant you needed to take care of your business, and death was pretty much the expected outcome at that point.

Partial Transcript: It was about that time that we submitted our first budget because again student dues and faculty who were paying into the Lambda Horizon bank account, and alumni were the ones paying for the phone line, which was the lifeline for so many people here. We felt like the university should be paying for that. It is a service we are providing to the university. And the university—we put together a budget, we outlined it, and they agreed.

Partial Transcript: The next major step, and I think it probably happened in 1986 was moving the group from off campus onto campus. Again it was going back to the argument of every student group that wants can get space on campus for a meeting. Why can’t we? Again, why are we different? We are not. We are students paying for this university and like to think that everybody here works for us.

Partial Transcript: I graduated and finished out my career here at Virginia Tech, graduated March of 1987, extended a little bit, a lot of extra curricular activities that contributed to the exceptional education I received here at Virginia Tech. I would also say. I have a marketing degree—the support I received from the marketing department in terms of the work that I did with the student health center and in terms of public health education was fundamental to and built the foundation of the career that I have led.

Partial Transcript: KENNELLY: When you said you were afraid to meet on campus originally, was there experienced discrimination? Did you ever have that experience?

WEBER: Good questions, yes.

KENNELLY: Or subtle discrimination?
WEBER: All of the above, overt to subtle to we made it up ourselves, and so I’ll start with my personal experience, and then expand it to some other experiences that I’ve heard about. So I mentioned I lived in Lee Hall. The first year I lived in Lee Hall I was in the closet. [I tried to] blend in, mix in.

Partial Transcript: WEBER: it ultimately grew to about 200 plus members or 250 I remember towards the end when I left, in our database.

KENNELLY: Two hundred and fifty? From a very small group in the beginning or—

WEBER: Two hundred and fifty. Yeah, I mean it was just a handful of us [in the beginning]. Again that’s not representative of who were here, it’s just who became involved. Some people were very involved, other people would show up at meetings, other people just showed up at the parties, other people you might see at the bar in Roanoke just like any group, there is varying involvement.

Partial Transcript: We started the Ex Lapide group and that’s been an interesting struggle from a few vantage points. We are doing a lunch with students tomorrow, and I hate to admit this, but apparently the students like to hear about the way it used to be. So it’s like oh great now I’m like the ancient person, or as I was labeled the ancient gay. That was I think over thirty, so the way things used to be. I pretty much took a twenty-year, twenty-five-year break from Virginia Tech once I graduated. I left in ’87, and Virginia Tech essentially, the way I describe it, froze in my mind as 1987, and I came back.

Partial Transcript: KENNELLY: Networking is everything.

WEBER: It’s how I got my first job out of Tech, short version of the story, was a newspaper ad I answered in the Washington Post, but the reason why I got the job is because of all the HIV AIDS work I did here on campus.

KENNELLY: Wow and what was the first job?

WEBER: I worked for a non-profit in DC. It was a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control on HIV prevention in adolescence.

Partial Transcript: A turning point in my career very early at that point in time was during the first Bush administration. The World Hemophilia Foundation was having their big worldwide conference in Washington, D.C., and they had invited the administration to come and speak on HIV and immigration policy. At that point in time, people with HIV weren’t being allowed into the U.S. I mean it was U.S. policy. The argument was well they aren’t a harm to anybody. They aren’t contagious.

Partial Transcript: One of the things we were really proud of was that Virginia Tech along with University of California Berkley were recognized by the American College Health Association for their outstanding AIDS education efforts, and we were invited to go to New Orleans to speak at the American College Health Association’s annual meeting and present on our work. The homespun fun of Jo Ann Underwood, and the fact that we did this, we called it on a shoestring budget.

Partial Transcript: Jo Ann Underwood was more like your favorite aunt; you couldn’t talk to your parents, but you could talk to your aunt. She was the one who was a little bit out there and more approachable. Jo Ann would just go around, I remember she came in to one of our meetings. She said, “I’ve lost my diaphragm. Has anyone seen a diaphragm laying around?” We just thought, oh my gosh, who is this woman? [laughter] That was her, and at the same time put us at ease about how we were going to talk about these things that just are very hard to talk about.

Partial Transcript: one of the things that has the most influence on determining your destiny as a child are your parents. As a LGBT child, if your parents accept you without question that opens up so many more doors and reduces the possibility of depression, suicide, drug addiction—all those things that come with internal stress, self hate, things like that and how they manifest themselves. So when all parents are accepting of their children as who they are, we’ll be there. We will be there.

Partial Transcript: So when I came out obviously, as I mentioned earlier, I was sexually active very young, and it was very natural. As I look back now too over the years your sort of develop a lot of hang-ups just based on watching TV, or what you’re supposed to look like, or going to gay bars and seeing what you’re supposed to look like or something like that. Anyway it was just very natural, and it was who I was. It was just absolutely beautiful experience with my friend, and then we labeled it, and then it became scary. Then there was sort of a withdrawal from the label, and I remember sort of the internal struggle or feeling the gut and probably just repressing it is ultimately what it is.

Partial Transcript: the fact that there is a gay graduation at Virginia Tech. I had to come see it to believe it. There’s a gay graduation?! What? I think last year there were twelve students who participated in the Lavender Ceremony, and if you do the math, there should be a couple hundred up there. So that’s going to be a sign of equity as that number grows and that recognition and tribute happens. The alum that I know and friends, I say, “There’s a gay graduation now.” What! They are just shocked.

Partial Transcript: For that enthusiasm you really have to experience Virginia Tech again, meet some of the students, and talk with folks, and realize that there is a mechanism. Even if you don’t want to engage, but you want to give back a little bit there is a mechanism available for a Lambda Horizon scholarship fund that goes to gay students and helps them with some of their tuition.
I know we are struggling with an identity. It’s like, well why do we do this? What is it for?

Partial Transcript: KENNELLY: There’s been controversy about the use of the word “queer,” and I wondered if you would comment on that word? Do you think it is a negative kind of word? I mean I think the university thought that was a kind of step when they stopped using the word “queer,” but I don’t know if it is or not.

WEBER: Well, two things: one when we were children, we used to play smear the queer. I remember my mother coming out and saying, “I don’t like that. Call it something else.” At that point in time it didn’t have the connotation of what queer could mean today, to some people. So I always remember smear the queer. But think of who probably made up that name and where it came from. I don’t know who made up that name or where it came from.

Partial Transcript: KENNELLY: Initially why did you choose to come to Virginia Tech? What was it about Virginia Tech that you decided to come to school here?

WEBER: The short answer is it was a very easy application, and I didn’t have to take three years of a language. I was like, oh I can go to Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech is actually the only school I applied for. It appears to me that it was much easier to get into Virginia Tech in 1982 than it is today. On the more academic side, I was really interested in their marketing department. I read about it. I was like, that’s what I wanted to do.

Partial Transcript: KENNELLY: Were there any particular restaurants, bars, or gathering places where gay students felt comfortable during that time? I think there was a bar in Roanoke. Was that Backstreets?
WEBER: Oh my gosh yes. Well there was Backstreets in Roanoke, but we all went to The Park, which was a dance club. Backstreets was more of a—it had a pool table and just a bar, not dancing and stuff like that. It wasn’t as much the younger college crowd if you will.

Partial Transcript: It was part of my marketing program that I did—independent study was around HIV AIDS education. What kind of messages would resonate with students on a college campus? I still have these [messages], and I need to get them here, so we came up with four messages to see how they might resonate with students. A for profit company would go out to test messages at a mall intercept study where they get people to react. Myself and a friend walked around campus and handed people a clipboard and said, “Open this up, and when you do, write down what you first think.”

Partial Transcript: I will never forget, or forgive, Jo Ann Underwood for coming in— we got it done, and we were so proud; we had worked all night long, and we were passionate—she said to me, "Mark, no one’s really going to want to watch this except for the people who worked on it." I’m like, "No, that’s not true. This is very important information. People need to hear this."
Well she was right. The lesson I took away from that was that unless someone is really personally engaged or been personally touched by an issue. It’s hard for them to care about it because we are so busy in our lives.

Partial Transcript: Dr. Sandra Sullivan, who was the Vice President for Student Affairs. Again as a student I had no idea of how bureaucracies work in organizational structures, and Boards of Visitors. It was like who cares. It doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant. I think upon reflection, I think she was one of our quiet champions in the university. She really, it’s my opinion, had to sort of see how far we could go without going too far and taking the heat.

Partial Transcript: So one of the classes I took was Design in the Near Environment, and that was one of those classes that everybody knew that if you take that, you don’t have to do too much work, and you get through, and you get a credit. I’m sure that was never the case, and my apologies to faculty and everybody who worked hard to create that intense curriculum, but anyway so the basic project was you had to do a slide show, and that was it, do a slide show. So I thought, hmm what am I going to do? So I went to The Park in Roanoke, and the female impersonators, and I said, "I want to do a show about you."

Partial Transcript: WEBER:One of the last things I did was I wrote up a proposal that, and this is also a sign of the times, there would be a dedicated LGBTQ person in the student counseling center to help coordinate.

KENNELLY: That’s right.

WEBER: A safe place that the university owned. They would hire somebody.

KENNELLY: Yes, I saw that in your collection.

WEBER: [My proposal said] here’s why and what would happen. So low and behold how many years later I finally met the person, and the best part is they’re not in the counseling center. They’re in the diversity center.

Partial Transcript: One of the other things is in student life of LGBT students is you are pretty much excluded, at that point in time, from all the big events like the homecoming, the dances, the events the university puts on because you’re not a heterosexual couple, the expected boy/girl event. So that also contributes to a sense of exclusion, and again it’s not an overt message to students, but it weighs on you, so you are excluded, and we were often left to create our own events and entertainment and fun and opportunities for socializing. One of my close friends and he and I decided we were going to go to Mid Winter’s Dance.

Partial Transcript: I mentioned earlier about a person, a student who was writing for the CT, Greg Edwards, and he wrote that history of LGBT efforts at Virginia Tech and this was again I think ‘83/’84 in the CT. Greg was actually the first person in my life who called me up to let me know that he had indeed converted from sero- to HIV positive. I remember the energy he brought to the CT, the energy he brought to Lambda Horizon. He was one of our key supporters. Having the opportunity to work at the CT and being an excellent, just a brilliant writer.