Senior Profile: Joseph Daniels, CC

He may be smoking a cigarette outside of Butler Library, but Joseph Daniels isn’t resting on his laurels.

In fact, before taking that first puff, he most likely just finished doing one or more of the following: acquiring more funding for campus queer events, organizing a controversial underwear party, or writing an art history paper on the male nude.

He can even do it all in Latin.

Most recently, the Columbia College senior served as the co-chair for last fall’s Queer Awareness Month, the secretary for the Columbia Queer Alliance, and a member of the Queer Leaders’ Caucus. It’s clear where his extracurricular interests lie today, but this wasn’t always the case.

“There was no gay culture in the South, “ Daniels, a native of Chesapeake, Va., explained, adding that he used to wear his sexual identity “as a badge."

“When I first came to Columbia, I had yet to fully integrate or sublimate my sexuality into who I was as an individual.”

The move north led to a natural evolution in his own politics. By junior year, Daniels began to fully identity as queer, a word that he says encompasses a political ideology. “I know my sexuality is a part of every decision I make, but it’s not separate anymore. It informs all of my thought in a way that flows.”

Several events at Columbia brought about this change in outlook, including a handful of hate crimes on campus that targeted gay students and the hunger strike from the fall of 2007. When Queer Awareness Month’s opening events were coordinated with a campus rally against racism, Daniels said he felt proud to see the rainbow balloons mixing in with the crowd. “It literally just confirmed my faith in the different minority communities here, and our ability to stand in solidarity.”

Since getting involved, funding for campus queer events has almost doubled and the Office of Multicultural Affairs created a position for a new LGBT adviser.

The art history and classics major has also helped support the movement for gender-neutral housing and bathrooms on campus. “So often the white, gay male becomes the face of the queer movement, and that’s a problem for representation.” To this end, he also helped coordinate a gay Muslim activist, Faisal Alam, to speak at an interfaith event following the visit of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (“The best publicity I could’ve asked for,” he recalled.)

Though he’s not sure what the future holds, Daniels said he’s less interested in pursuing academia than he used to be. This year marks almost a decade since Daniels began studying Latin, a language he started learning when he thought he might become a doctor. As his love for the language grew, he then considered becoming a classics professor. Now, Daniels said he wants to explore public service. To explain, he cited Stoic philosophy and the social contract.

“I become stronger as this community becomes stronger,” he said. “I’m going to hold up my end of the bargain.”