President Ann Weaver Hart recently presented the annual Kidder Fund Awards to Heather Barber, associate professor of kinesiology; the university’s Financial Aid Office; and students Heather Fauteux and Annie Medeiros. The Kidder Fund was established to support and encourage educational efforts in enhancing the understanding of sexual minorities and gender identities, foster HIV/AIDS awareness, and to demonstrate the constructive contributions that the GLBT community is making. The annual awards are given in recognition of the outstanding efforts of those students, staff, faculty, alumni, parents, and friends who wage their own quiet struggles with intolerance and fear.

Over the past decade, Barber has helped honor the differences in GLBT athletes. She sits on the NCAA Certification Gender Equity, Diversity and Student Welfare Sub-committee at UNH and serves on the Gender Equity committee of the UNH Athletic Advisory Committee.

She has also served as GLBT liaison in the national organization American Alliance for Health Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, and she has presented at national conferences on the issues.

Over the last seven years, the Financial Aid Office has quietly supported students, who have, in the process of coming out, lost the financial support of their families. Because dealings with students are confidential, that work has gone unrecognized.