Professor Robert Ridinger is a faculty member at Founders Memorial Library located at Northern Illinois University. He began working for NIU in 1981 after spending several years in the Peace Corps in South Africa where he witnessed apartheid in action. Obtaining tenure was a difficult battle against university administration who were opposed to it because of his sexual orientation and involvement with the LGBT community. After coming out as homosexual on a national stage directly related to his tenure project, and being awarded a professorship by the university, Professor Ridinger went on to create a number of important LGBT newspaper and magazine archives at the Library, help develop the LGBT certificate, design many of the LGBT classes, and even served on the Commission on the Status of LGBT People to address discrimination on campus. Professor Ridinger has had his work on the Homophile Movement recognized internationally and created one of the largest archives of gay and lesbian newspaper and magazine collections in the Midwest United States. He continues to work closely with various academic departments, like the Center for Black Studies, Center for Women’s Studies, and Center for Latino Studies, expanding the library’s database and collections to ensure underrepresented people on campus have the resources they need to conduct research in their field of study.
