Image of Ara DostourianAra Dostourian was a part of the History department of West Georgia College from 1969 to 1996. During Dr. Dostourian’s tenure at West Georgia, he was a major supporter of the counter-cultural movements on campus, especially for the LGBTQ+ community. Dr. Dostourian was the first openly gay faculty at West Georgia. In 1972, he started the first gay rights activist group on campus. At the time, he called it Students for Gay Education and Awareness, and the organization strived to fight for equal rights for LGBTQ+ people, to create positive visibility on the West Georgia College campus, and to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ people in the campus community. Students for Gay Education and Awareness became Lambda during the late 1990s.