Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Penn State Committee Nixes the Terms 'Freshmen,' 'Upperclassmen' Because They're Classist and Sexist
Red State ^ | 05/12/2021 | Alex Parker

Posted on 05/12/2021 7:49:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Our new era just got a little newer.

Do you remember the excitement of college? Do you recall the energy of your freshman year? As a sophomore, perhaps, you were hitting your stride. As a senior, per chance, you were large and in charge.

Well, that was then and this is now. Perhaps you’re still large and in charge or — like a lot of us — maybe only one of those. Either way, a new generation won’t be stepping on the same ladder rungs your cool Reeboks — or Chuck Taylors or Dr. Martens — once did.

At least, that is, in terms of terms.

Such is the case, as suggested, at Pennsylvania State University, where the faculty senate’s voted to 86 the classification of “freshmen.”

Also nixed: “sophomore,” “junior,” “senior,” “underclassmen,” and “upperclassmen.”

The improvement comes courtesy of a resolution championing “inclusive language.”

As reported by Campus Reform, on April 27th, the Senate Committee on Curricular Affairs passed the “Removal of Gendered & Binary Terms from Course and Program Descriptions” resolution.

Here’s how it begins:

The University, as with most all academic institutions world-wide, has grown out of a typically male-centered world. As such, many terms in our lexicon carry a strong, male-centric, binary character to them.

The motion fries “freshmen” while cooking classism. And sexism? You’re toast:

Terms such as “freshmen” are decidedly male-specific, while terms such as “upperclassmen” can be interpreted as both sexist and classist.

Furthermore, it explains, “junior” and “senior” are “parallel to western male father-son naming conventions, and much of our written documentation uses he/she pronouns.”

The measure suggests Penn State enact “editorial updates to…course and program descriptions, which appear in the course catalog and bulletin, to remove gendered terms.”

It’s a major overhaul:

We suggest that the University consider changes to all written materials, including recruiting materials, admissions materials, scholarship information, housing materials, other outward-facing documents, internal documents, and websites.

And not only that, but the school should “move away from the use of gendered pronouns when referring to students, faculty, staff, and guests in course descriptions and degree program descriptions.”

Amid the changes, male and female pronouns would be replaced by “they” variants.

Alternately, the college could employ “non-gendered terms such as student, faculty member, staff member.”

And what of attendance-related titles that “stem from a primarily male-centric academic history”?

The edict suggests “first-year,” “second-year,” etc.

But what if you take — as many do — six or seven years to graduate?

The committee admits such a designation would “perhaps negatively reflect on” such slowpokes.

Hence: “Advanced-standing” is the ticket.

So goes language into a more sterile form.

It’s not surprising, as we’ve been previously informed of English’s need of male-targeted detoxifying.

And to be clear, Penn State isn’t the only college lunging to liberate the oppressed.

As noted by Campus Reform, the University of Virginia student government recently “offered a referendum to scrap all gendered pronouns from its constitution in favor of gender-neutral terminology.”

Personally, I’m in favor of going much farther into fixing our problematic parlance.

“They” gets rid of cisgender distinction, but the pronoun game has been upped a might since that aging inclusive relic.

Last month, I covered the advent of the brand-spanking “noun-self pronoun.”

Such allows one to exist on a creative plane heretofore unavailable to the spoken-of masses.

Welcome to the World of 'Noun-Self' Pronouns, Now Get Down With Your Bunself
https://t.co/GXR87HKkjD

— RedState (@RedState) April 15, 2021

As reported by The New York Times, boys, girls, and the nonbinary alike may now refer to themselves as “bun/bunself.”

I vote for that term to replace all others in the Penn State literature.

Gone will be the weight-gain-indicating, sexist phrase “freshman 15.” From now on, across the quad, as the semester extends like a loosened belt, classmates will simply notice the presence of larger buns.

It’s just an idea, but so are the Senate’s proposals.

Speaking of — as stated by Penn State News — the group also passed a “resolution affirming its support” for the “More Rivers to Cross: Black Faculty and Academic Racism at Penn State University” report.

Per a member of the Self-Study Committee:

“This is a symbolic action, but it is important to take a stand against racism and stand with our fellow faculty, and then take steps in order to fight against racism and any act of white supremacy.”

Education’s on the move.


TOPICS: Education; Society
KEYWORDS: gender; pennstate; wokeness
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-22 next last

1 posted on 05/12/2021 7:49:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Leave it with “Them, those”


2 posted on 05/12/2021 7:50:22 PM PDT by SkyDancer (If At First You Don't Succeed ~ So Much For Skydiving)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

How about we have no terms at all for anything. Or better yet lets no talk at all.


3 posted on 05/12/2021 7:53:53 PM PDT by Democrats hate too much
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Insanity


4 posted on 05/12/2021 7:54:02 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire. Or both.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Paranoid schizophrenia.

Assigns meaning to things that are not associated but can superficially be associated due to language.

Here that class somehow refers to social or economic class rather than level in school.

A classic example is the schizophrenic woman who saw the cereal Trix as a coded message relating to prostitution.


5 posted on 05/12/2021 7:55:59 PM PDT by ifinnegan ( Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

So frosch is out too?

PC is going be the death of the Republic, if not civilization.

I’m tired of this crap!


6 posted on 05/12/2021 8:00:42 PM PDT by AFreeBird
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

That’s gay.


7 posted on 05/12/2021 8:21:23 PM PDT by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. .... )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

It’s astounding that human beings still fork out huge sums, of hard earned money, for a radical indoctrination, and monitoring by “ diversity “ deans.

The “ university “ paradigm is completely kaput.


8 posted on 05/12/2021 8:39:59 PM PDT by BrexitBen
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Penn State— home of Jerry Sandusky who molested boys, and Michael Mann who molested data. Somehow it doesn’t surprie me that they are wokeys.


9 posted on 05/12/2021 8:42:46 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard (resist the narrative. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

/eyeroll


10 posted on 05/12/2021 8:56:20 PM PDT by sauropod (Chance favors the prepared mind.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

Their coaches used to do strange things in the showers.


11 posted on 05/12/2021 9:04:27 PM PDT by Luke21
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

The term “human” needs to go.
When you say “human” , you imply that other life forms are not human or inhuman .
You are thus showing your human privilege and marginalizing other life forms.
Stop the hate.


12 posted on 05/12/2021 9:11:44 PM PDT by HereInTheHeartland (Leave me alone, I have no incriminating evidence on the Clintons)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

BrosnHos?


13 posted on 05/12/2021 9:16:13 PM PDT by DeFault User
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Women and men also have “men” in them. The horror!


14 posted on 05/12/2021 9:27:26 PM PDT by married21 (As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

THEY/THEM ARE!!!

Seriously though, it’s a single student government subcommittee. They probably have about as much official pull as a gnat’s fart in a hurricane. It will be fun test of newspeak to see what they try to do though, Penn State’s trustees will have to answer to the alumni if they let this dumbness fly, and there are a lot of alumni still pissed about the JoePa statue being taken down.


15 posted on 05/12/2021 10:54:35 PM PDT by jz638
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
“It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other words? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take 'good,' for instance. If you have a word like 'good,' what need is there for a word like 'bad'? 'Ungood' will do just as well--better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of 'good,' what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like 'excellent' and 'splendid' and all the rest of them? 'Plusgood' covers the meaning, or 'doubleplusgood' if you want something stronger still...In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words--in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston?”

- George Orwell's "1984"

Regards,

16 posted on 05/12/2021 11:11:29 PM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind; Liz; GOPJ; V K Lee; rlmorel
Good post, SeekAndFind.

Penn State is owned by the CITizens of Pennsylvania, not just the WOKEizens.

Perhaps it's time to revisit the mission and funding for State Universities throughout the country.

With about 55% of U.S. University attendants being female (sorry, transgenders or people with XX chromosomes who identify as "she"), a high percentage of males have opted out of the University system.

Where did those males go? Were they too unWOKE to want to attend? Or have the wheels of societal change shifted (ever so slightly) in the positive direction?

FReepers, the more active the university WOKizens get on their path to destroy Western civilization and erase the history of the huMAN race, the more they undermine the funding and popularity of these corrupt Universities.

I heard yesterday, my alma mater Notre Dame, invited Xiden for its commencement. Xiden turned them down, figuring ND is sufficiently woke already.

17 posted on 05/12/2021 11:25:42 PM PDT by poconopundit (Hard oak fist in an Irish velvet glove: Kayleigh the Shillelagh we salute your work!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
" “Advanced-standing” is the ticket."

Since the opposite of 'advanced' is 'retarded', what is the break point where the retarded students become advanced?

18 posted on 05/13/2021 3:40:25 AM PDT by norwaypinesavage (The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

leftist bullsh*t swallowed by the gullible


19 posted on 05/13/2021 3:49:06 AM PDT by sten (fighting tyranny never goes out of style )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: hinckley buzzard
Penn State— home of Jerry Sandusky who molested boys...

...and Joe Paterno who knew and looked the other way when Sandusky was committing those crimes.

20 posted on 05/13/2021 4:10:33 AM PDT by T.B. Yoits
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-22 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson