UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. (WJAC) — With the intention of being more inclusive, Penn State University is looking to drop "male-specific" words like “freshman,” “sophomore” and “upperclassmen.”
Officials say the Penn State Faculty Senate approved proposition AD84 during their final meeting of the 2020-21 academic year.
They said the approved legislation would implement the use of gender neutral and non-binary terminology in course and program descriptions.
The recommendation that was passed stated that many universities have grown out of a typically male-centered world and many terms carry a male-centric binary character to them.
The recommendation says terms like “freshman” are male-specific, while terms like “upperclassmen” can be seen as sexist and classist.
Furthermore, they say words like “junior” and “senior” come from western father-son naming conventions.
Instead, titles like freshman/sophomore/junior/senior will be replaced with first-year, second-year, third-year, fourth-year and beyond, according to Penn State.
The approved recommendations would also replace he/him/his and she/her/hers with they/them/theirs or other non-gendered words like student, faculty, staff member, etc.
ncG1vNJzZmivmpawtcKNnKamZ56axLR7y6iamqRfpbKvuoysq5qslWLBsHnDq6apZZ2WuaZ50qmcnKGWnrBuwMito56rXaG2rLGMn6meq5iirq95ya6loqeiYsCmusioqQ%3D%3D