ST. CLOUD STATE
U
N
I
V
E
R S
I
T
Y
A tradition of excellence and opportunity
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY
720 Fourth Avenue South
St. Cloud, MN 56301-4498
Phone (320) 255-2294
October 01, 2012
Distinguished Thesis Nomination Letter for Angela Brown
Thesis Adviser: Stephen Philion (SOC)
As the MS Thesis Committee Chair for Angela Brown’s Thesis, “Queer Youth
Community Organizing: Intents and Outcomes of Youth Mobilization in LGBTQ Service
Programs” I very enthusiastically nominate Ms.Angela Brown’s thesis for the SCSU
Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award. It was the consensus of Ms. Brown’s thesis
committee (Stephen Philion [SOC], Sandrine Zerbib [SOC], and Beth Berilla [WS]) that
this thesis makes a profound and model contribution as a sociological piece of graduatelevel research.
Indeed, Angela’s thesis was so well written that one of her committee members
turned to her before she began her Oral Defense and stated, “Let’s talk about finding a
publisher for this manuscript.” This thesis is highly original and richly sociological. Her
thesis critically analyzes how efforts by LGBTQ service programs to create a ‘by and for’
model of organizing queer youth activists within their organizations sometimes fall short
of that goal, irrespective of their good intentions. Although Ms. Brown identifies herself
as an ally of such community organizations and the LGBTQ youth that they serve, she
took seriously the need of critical research to be based on an objective (not neutral, but
objective) assessment of data that she collected. Her data was rich, ethnographic in
orientation, based on her role as a participant observer in two LGBTQ Service Programs,
through informal interviews, and through life history and semi-structured interviews with
directors, youth members, and collaborators of both programs totaling 25 participants.
Conceptually, the MS thesis is thorough in its review of key theoretical arguments
in the literature of social movements, feminism, and identity. The thesis challenges trends
in the theoretical literature on LGBTQ issues and suggests that a more class based (in lieu
of an singular identity based) approach to thinking about the struggles of LGBTQ youth
would result in a better capacity to be relevant to them as supporters and community
organizers. She not only makes this argument at a theoretical level, but then proceeds,
TTY: 1-800-627-3529 SCSU is an affirmative action/equal opportunity educator and employer.
This material can be given to you in an alternative format such as large print, Braille, etc. by contacting the department/agency listed above.
through an engagement of her rich data, to assess its relevance. It is a work that is truly
what critical thinking ideally is about, namely the capacity (whether we are talking about
academics or activists or combinations of both) to not only critically think in a
sociological fashion with regard to those whose ideas we are opposed to, but likewise
about ideologies within social movements whose goals we support.