ACC/ACU Gender and Sexuality Project

The ACC/ACU Gender and Sexuality Project preserves firsthand accounts of alumni of Abilene Christian College (later Abilene Christian University), with particular attention to how students, faculty, and staff have experienced issues of gender and sexuality during their time at the institution. The collection began in Fall 2019 as a class project in HIST 340, Historical Perspectives on Gender and Sexualities. Each student in the course conducted at least one oral history interview with an ACC or ACU alum who attended between 1945 and 2012. These alumni’s firsthand stories—of dating culture, gender roles, expectations around marriage, the intersection between religion, sexuality, and gender, policies regulating sexual behavior, and more—are captured and presented here. The project will continue and expand, with students conducting a new set of oral history interviews every two years. As a primary source collection, the ACC/ACU Gender and Sexuality Project provides a window into life at a private Christian liberal arts college in West Texas from the post-WWII era into the 21st century.