Claude Bartholomew ’07 of Middleburgh, NY, is a driving force for gender education at St. Lawrence University. Since arriving, the Middleburgh High School graduate has pushed for more awareness concerning gender issues. The liberal arts education that St. Lawrence offers has dramatically shaped how Claude views his world.

St. Lawrence has offered Claude the chance to explore controversial areas in gender studies as a psychology major and gender studies minor. “This combination has allowed me to pursue a career furthering education that focuses on helping people through a more complex understanding of humans in general,” says Claude. “The effects we feel and the complex gender and sexuality issues unknowingly come to affect much more of our daily lives than we do or might want to realize.”

One way in which Claude has raised awareness is by co-organizing an exhibition of photographs titled "Support Love" that was exhibited in the atrium of the Student Center on campus from February 2 through 28. The curators' statement reads, "Art - whether a painting, a piece of writing or a photograph - has the power to inspire emotion, new connections between individuals and greater understanding of the surrounding world. For these reasons, we consider art to be a medium of social change. Our goal in developing the exhibition is to motivate change on the campus. Twenty-five photographs, gathered from a variety of sources, capture the diversity of intimate, romantic, same-sex relationships, while also helping to dispel the dominant discourse that relationships between two individuals of the same gender are shallow sexual connections at best."

Claude is involved in many activities on campus, ranging from anti-sexual violence education to writing for student publications. He believes that incoming first-year students should keep an open mind as they start their college career. “Come with a desire to learn and a desire to do anything, and the time that you spend at St. Lawrence will be very productive and worthwhile,” he says. Ultimately, it’s about being passionate about something and pursuing it.