Recent graduate R. Lane Forsman was able to successfully defend his dissertation on February 28th before the U.S. had seen the full impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Despite all the current uncertainties surrounding the pandemic, Lane is excited to join the faculty of Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville (SIUE).

His dissertation titled, “Queer College Sexual Violence: The interaction of gender identity and sexual assault on campus” (Major professor: Lisa Schelbe) highlights his research interest in LGBTQ+ issues and sexual assault.

“One of the reasons I’m excited to get started at SIUE is the chance to bring my research focus and understanding of LGBT client populations to the faculty,” explained Lane. “It brings the opportunity to collaborate across campus with other departments and provides the department with classes specific to my knowledge area. SIUE heavily encourages its faculty to infuse their teaching with the research they do.”

Sharing knowledge and connecting with students has become one of his favorite parts of working in academia, which he discovered during his doctoral program at FSU teaching and assisting with social work courses. He acknowledges that when he first started his program, he knew teaching was a part of it but didn’t realize how much he would come to enjoy it. He also emphasized how impactful social work professors were for him throughout his time at FSU.

A three-time graduate at FSU, Lane has returned to campus to complete three degrees in social work (BSW, 2013; MSW, 2014; Ph.D., 2020). It is the connections that have brought him back time and again, with both faculty and students and now that same excitement for connection tursn toward his next academic journey at SIUE.

Lane will be teaching his first semester at SIUE graduate-level social work policy but is already developing a new undergraduate elective focusing on LGBTQ+ issues and social work in order to share his expertise. He also plans on working on new qualitative research on the transgender experience of sexual violence and help-seeking at SIUE. Through this work, he hopes to inform future projects in both the measurement of sexual violence and the analysis of existing sexual violence response programs.