Oral history interview with Laura Pinsky, 2016

Biographical Note

Laura Pinsky attended Barnard College as an undergraduate and was an active participant throughout the 1968 student unrest at Columbia University. She began working at Columbia Health in 1985 and co-founded the Gay Health Advocacy Project at the University

Scope and Contents

Laura Pinsky starts her interview by discussing her childhood in a family with a history of liberal activism. She then moves into a discussion of Columbia University's campus during the 1968 student unrest and her engagement with it as a Barnard student. Pinsky also talks about how she came to Berkley, California during the protests there and how her involvement in these events helped influence her work with advocacy. Pinsky talks about her work with abortion clinics in New York and the CARASA organization after graduation, before she eventually went to work with Montefiore Hospital. Pinsky then talks about working with the Gay Health Advocacy Project at Columbia University. She describes how this initiative started, how it grew over time, issues that the GHAP has addressed, and the challenges in building it into its state at the time of the interview

Subjects

• AIDS (Disease)--United States--History.
• Barnard College.--Alumni and alumnae--Interviews.
• Beckenstein, Jamie, interviewer.
• College students--Health and hygiene--United States
• Columbia University.
• Gay college students
• Interviews
• Lesbian college students
• Oral histories
• Pinsky, Laura--Interviews.
• Psychotherapists--Interviews.
• Students--Political activity.
• Student strikes--New York (State)--New York.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, 2016