Associate Professor Emerita Cynthia A. Gilliatt taught in the Department of English from 1971 to 2008. She specialized in courses on John Milton, Seventeenth-Century Literature, The Bible as Literature, Mythology, and Gay and Lesbian Literature, a course she developed. Professor Gilliatt was a founding member of Safe Zones at JMU and of Integrity/Virginia, a faith-based organization that provides spiritual space and counsel for gay members of the Episcopal Church.