IIQ Producer and Co-Host’s Community Service Recognized with SIU Lindell W. Sturgis Award

It is with a deep sense of honor and gratitude that I receive the 2025 Lindell W. Sturgis Award from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Details of why I am the recipient of the award are included in local media stories, such as this one at The Southern Illinoisan. 

The award recognizes outstanding community service provided by an SIUC employee. I am involved in a number community advocacy initiatives, but the ones principally recognized by this award include: producing the community radio broadcast/podcast Isn’t it Queer; being a founding member and current treasurer of the SOIL Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence; being a founding member and workshop facilitator of The Beloved Puppetistas and the annual All Species Parade on Earth Day; leadership and convener roles for Gay Spirit Visions.

To be honest, given the current political climate and the Federal turn against DEI, particularly queer and trans people, I thought the nomination for the award was a long shot. Southern Illinois University demonstrates with this award that it will not be cowed by prejudicial governmental overreach and challenges to academic freedom and the freedom of speech. 

I am inspired to do what I do with community by the work of Harry Hay. In his writings, Hay discusses a subject-SUBJECT orientation to community. At its heart, this approach involves seeing other people as people, just as valuable as yourself—that is, not objects external to you, approached with judgement, but as fellow human beings. This also means that community is not something external to me but something that I join with others to build. I often say, “My response to community should not be a Yelp review, but what can I do?”

I am also influenced by a tenet of Queer Ecology that asserts human diversity is just as important as biodiversity in living sustainably on the planet. At the core of all of my work is a deep commitment to be constantly aware of our environmental impacts and to live in environmentally sustainable ways. The human part of that practice benefits from acceptance and empowerment of human differences, across races, cultures, ethnicities, abilities, genders, sexualities, and access to resources, among others. At the level of ecosystems or communities, monocultures are neither sustainable nor wise. 

I am proud to work at a university that encourages and rewards such an ethic. So far, SIUC and Illinois, generally, have stood up for ADEI initiatives, including continued support for LGBTQ+ communities. I am prepared to continue to contribute to these efforts, through service, activism, and public education. I am fortunate to work with amazing people with similar commitments, including my husband Craig Gingrich-Philbrook, my IIQ co-host Heather O’Malley, my fellow SOIL Sisters, Cade Bursell and other Beloved Puppetistas, the staff and volunteers at Rainbow Cafe, and so many others.  Southern Illinois is a beautiful place to live, and we are all working together to make it a supportive, accepting, sustainable community—subject to subject.

—Jonny