The entrance to the CSGD through Roundhouse in Allard Hall. Amanda Erickson/The Griff.

Ponzio offers his own experiences, and the potential for research opportunities

Over the summer, Alessio Ponzio was hired as MacEwan’s new Director of Centre of Sexuality & Gender Diversity (CSGD), after his predecessor Kristopher Wells became a Senator of Canada. 

Ponzio received his PhD in Italy prior to applying for a PhD in Women’s Studies and History at the University of Michigan. He then became a professor at the University of Saskatchewan and  Memorial University in Newfoundland before finding his dream job: director of MacEwan’s CSGD. To Ponzio, the CSGD was the perfect combination of research, teaching and, most importantly, activism. 

While he made it clear that the CSGD cannot deal with issues related to psychology, Ponzio wants to offer his own experiences, as a gay elder, to the students of MacEwan.“It’s very important to have those queer elders who had that type of experience, and so they can go back to them and listen to how they experience queer joy or coming out or a relationship with their parents or friends.” 

 “We are not giving space from a historical perspective to people that need, and they have the right to have their stories told.”

— Alessio Ponzio, Director of CSGD

Another goal he has in mind is to make the CSGD more of a centre of research.”We should try to create a community among faculty who are interested in gender, sexuality, diversity, intersectionality, so that we can have conversations about these issues, share our own papers, discuss our own papers, get feedback, ideas,” Ponzio said. MacEwan in particular offers research positions to its undergraduate students that are typically offered to graduate students in other universities. 

“If we do not talk about certain individuals of certain identities, we are losing a lot of our history. We are not giving space from a historical perspective to people that need, and they have the right to have their stories told,” he said when asked about the significance of the erasure of queer narratives and history in government education policies. “For many students, it’s also very important to see how certain type of individuals have always existed, that they always have had people who were perceived as gender non-conforming or sexual non-conforming.”

“History gives us tools to be aware of certain type[s] of phenomena, so that we know what to do and how to behave.”

— Alessio Ponzio, Director of CSGD

 “They’ve always been there. They’ve always been in our history.” 

He doesn’t believe in creating direct parallels between the rise of fascism in Italy, and the current events boiling in Alberta, as that would be too simplistic. History, to him, is meant to “[give] us tools to be aware of certain type of phenomena so that we know what to do and how to behave.” 

“We are, in general, in the world, at a crossroad. And I think that we need to decide where we’re going to be in history, what is going to be our position at this crossroads? What is the road we want to take?” Ponzio asked. “And I think that when we attack minorities, when we target minorities, it’s a very dangerous sign.”