Toni McNaron, also known as Toni A. H. McNaron, (born April 3, 1937) is an American literary scholar, educator, and author. She is a professor emerita of English at the University of Minnesota, where she also served as the first coordinator of the university's Women's Studies Department. During her time at the University of Minnesota, McNaron received numerous awards for her teaching, leadership, and community service. McNaron also authored numerous articles, two memoirs, and several books on Shakespeare, LGBT-related issues and experiences, incest, and feminist literary criticism. McNaron retired from the university as a professor emerita in 2001.
McNaron also served as one of the founding editors of the feminist journal, Hurricane Alice: A Feminist Review, which ran from 1983 to 1998 and was first published in Minneapolis, MN.
Early life and education McNaron was born on April 3, 1937, in Alabama. In an interview with Lisa Westberg of the Minnesota Daily, McNaron stated that she grew up in the South; neither of her parents attended college but they "liked to read," and it was assumed that she would continue her education. "With the help of scholarships," Westberg writes, McNaron earned a bachelor's degree in English and Math from the University of Alabama in 1958, a master's in English and intellectual history from Vanderbilt University in 1960, and a Ph.D. in English and English history from the University of Wisconsin in 1964.
In her memoir, I Dwell in Possibilities: A Memoir, McNaron talks about the impact of growing up in Birmingham, Alabama during the Jim Crow era. For example, in 1963, she witnessed Bull Connor's releasing of dogs and training horses on black families leaving church. Chapters such as "Into the Cauldron" describe how this and other experiences throughout her youth and early adulthood were formative and contributed to her lifelong commitment to understanding race and racism.
Personal life According to an interview in 1997 with Deb Price, McNaron came out as a lesbian in 1973, when she also stopped drinking and entered a new phase of her life. During this period, she also became a feminist and an anti-Vietnam War activist.
When McNaron came out as a lesbian in 1973, she did so publicly to her students in class. McNaron was the first faculty member at the University of Minnesota to come out as lesbian or gay. During the same period, Minnesota educator and State Senator Allan Spear, who is credited with being the nation's first openly gay legislator, came out in 1974 and was also among the first openly gay or lesbian faculty at the University of Minnesota.
In her memoir, Into the Paradox: Conservative Spirit, Radical Politics, McNaron traces her spiritual path, beginning with a tiny Episcopal church that was scoffed at by Alabama Baptists who didn't accepts Jews, Catholics, or Episcopalians. After years at Episcopal churches, McNaron found a liberal Catholic church in Minneapolis and became an active member.
Career Before joining the faculty at the University of Minnesota in 1964 as assistant professor in English, McNaron was an instructor at All Saints' College (Vicksburg, MS) 1959-1961 and a teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin (1961–1963).
McNaron spent the rest of her career in the Department of English at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus, in Minneapolis, MN. She was assistant professor from 1964 to 1967, associate professor from 1967 to 1983, and a full professor from 1983 to 2001, when she became a professor emerita. Her research and teaching interests during this period included feminist criticism and feminist pedagogy, multicultural learning and teaching, as well as Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Lesbian literature and poetry, and Milton.
Early Contributions to Women's Studies and LGBTQ+ Studies McNaron developed an interest in the treatment of women in society as early as 1954 when, as an undergraduate, she was told by a professor that once she received her BA degree she would have to decide to either pursue "education, and a career" or "get married." This "intolerable choice" led her to become more concerned about the status of women in society. Later in her career, McNaron was also influenced by militant feminist activities in New York in the early 1970s, adding that "I didn't necessarily approve of their tactics; nevertheless, I had to thank them. They brought the issue of being a woman to my attention." As a result, her English lectures "took on a new twist," and she began asking her literature students "to examine and question social sexual stereotypes more closely."
Women's Studies Program at the University of Minnesota During this period in the early 1970s, McNaron became an influential voice in the new Women's Studies Program at the University of Minnesota, which was established in 1973. McNaron was selected from 100 applicants by the Regents to serve as its first coordinator, a position she held from 1973 to 1976. McNaron also served as the director of the graduate program in Women's Studies from 1980 to 1984. The University of Minnesota Women's Studies Department was notable because it was the first in the country to offer a Women's Studies major. By its 25th anniversary in 1998, it offered a Ph.D. program, one of only six in the country.
As stated in a profile of McNaron by Judy Vick in 1976, one of McNaron's priorities as coordinator of the Women's Studies Program was to conduct research to aid in the development of a feminist pedagogical practice:
McNaron...hopes [her research] will lead to the development of a feminist philosophy of education. She defines feminism as a "belief system--a very simple, but radical, notion that puts women in the center of life and culture...with men. I'm not interested in putting men down and reversing what was done to me." After researching the possibility of a feminist pedagogy, she plans to put what she's learned into practice.
As the coordinator of the Women's Studies program, throughout the 1970s McNaron consulted with other colleges and universities interested in establishing women's studies programs, including the University of Iowa, the University of South Dakota, Macalester College, Carleton College, and Minneapolis Community and Technical College. During this period, McNaron was also involved with national organizations such as the National Women's Studies Association, which had its first national conference in 1979. She served as a member of the organization's first steering committee from 1977 to 1978.
During this time, McNaron also pioneered efforts to make LGBTQ+ issues visible and to increase academic attention and student support at the university. She wrote a book on the experience of lesbian and gay academics and taught the first course on lesbian literature, which inspired at least one graduate student from Oberlin College to move to Minnesota. In connection with her efforts to advocate for the LGBT community, McNaron received a Breaking the Silence Award from the University of Minnesota Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender Employee Network commemorating National Coming Out Week and the 4th anniversary of the GLBT Programs Office.
The Schochet Center for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies The Schochet Center for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies opened in July 2000. The goals of the Schochet Center were to create a vibrant and productive center for teaching, learning, research, and community outreach; to foster academic and public discussion of GLBT issues; and to bridge gaps between the university and the community. The center was the first such center in the Midwest and the third in the nation. The development of the Schochet Center began in 1996 with a memorandum of understanding between the university and Steven J. Schochet to establish an endowment to make the university a more humane place for GLBT students. According to the Gender and Sexuality Center for Queer and Trans Life at the University of Minnesota, while a student at the university in the late 1950s, Schochet experienced harassment and threats of expulsion for his sexual orientation. After a successful career in the computer industry, Schochet decided to make a "gift of accountability" to the university.
In 1997, the university convened a GLBT Studies Endowment Committee to establish a vision for the endowment and to set goals for GLBT studies at the university. McNaron was one of ten members of the Committee which, along with Beth Zemsky, Director of GLBT Programs, planned for the launch of GLBT studies. Zemsky and McNaron led the effort to get university recognition and funding for a Center for GLBT Studies, which included visiting deans from colleges throughout the university. Among the early activities of the Schochet Center was an annual lecture series. McNaron gave the first lecture in the series, and Allan Spear the second.
Pedagogical Initiatives at the University of Minnesota
College in the Schools (CIS) From 1996 to 2023, McNaron served as the Faculty Coordinator for Literature for College in the Schools, a program which allows high school students to get a head start on their college and career plans while earning college credit. During her tenure, CIS served 15,000-20,000 high school students and enhanced the professional development of 200 high school teachers. Notable guest speakers who have participated in the CIS program include author Kao Kalia Yang, poet and writer Heid Erdrich, and Sarah Bellamy, artistic director for the Penumbra Theater Company.
Voices from the Gaps (North American Writers of Color) (VG) In 1996, along with Carol Miller, a professor of American Studies and American Indian Studies, and graduate student Laurie Dickinson, McNaron developed Voices from the Gaps (VG), a website with a mission to "uncover, highlight, and share works of marginalized artists, predominantly women writers of color living and working in North America."
Originally hosted by the English Department and now hosted by and searchable through the university's Digital Conservancy, the site was an innovative, technology-enhanced learning initiative at the time. Maureen Smith, writing in 1999, described its pedagogical mission:
The pioneering site’s focus was largely educational, aimed at a diverse audience of students in secondary schools and institutions of higher education. Created just as Internet use exploded, VG reached a global readership and cultivated a collaborative and intercommunal group of scholars, students, educators, and women artists. Students, volunteers, and VG readers submitted the majority of the site’s entries, including author biographies, book reviews, academic essays, and interviews with women artists. Additionally, the site’s creators developed a robust selection of pedagogical materials to help instructors incorporate VG resources in secondary school and undergraduate classrooms.
The site was revised twice to include multimedia files and to expand the scope of the collection to “feature women artists regardless of genre of work, race, minority status, or geographical location." McNaron and Miller received the 1999-2000 Center for Independent Studies of Writing Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of Minnesota, an award that honors those making an important contribution to the teaching of writing, for their development of the site, which the Center described as “an audience-participatory Web site devoted to women writers of color.”
Center for Educational Innovation (CEI) McNaron also served as a founding director of the university's Center for Teaching and Learning Services, which led to the creation of the Early Career Teaching Program: Pursuing Excellence in Multicultural Education program for faculty at the university.