- Yale University said it will adopt gender-neutral terms in effort to modernize
- Terms such as ‘freshman’ and ‘upperclassman’ will be replaced with ‘first-year’ and ‘upper-level student’
- The changes come after students and faculty began deliberating in 2016
- The rule will only affect resources like its First-Year Handbook and Undergraduate Regulations
- The dean of Yale University says that there is no official policy and that anyone can use the terms they choose
- Yale is not the first school to adopt the initiative, with Cornell, Columbia and Dartmouth already on board
- The new gender-neutral apporach will be instituted for the 2018 academic year
Yale University said Thursday that it’s replacing terms such as ‘freshman’ and ‘upperclassman’ with more gender-neutral phrasing like ‘first-year’ and ‘upper-level student.’
The changes come after faculty began deliberating the issue in 2016, when students said they wanted ‘greater gender inclusivity,’ on campus, according to the Yale Daily News.
The school said the new phrasing is a way to modernize its formal correspondence and public literature, and will only affect resources like its First-Year Handbook and Undergraduate Regulations, the Yale News added.
Yale University says its has decided to adopt more gender-neutral terms for the 2018 academic year
‘It’s really for public, formal correspondence and formal publications…we’re not trying to tell people what language to use in their everyday casual conversations,’ said Marvin Chun, Yale College’s dean, told the college publication. ‘We’re not trying to be language police.’
Marvin Chun (pictured), Yale College’s dean, said that the initiative is part of an effort to be more inclusive
Chun said that despite the changes, he expects the Yale community to continue to use the original vernacular ‘without feeling that anyone is out of compliance with an official policy’ in a Thursday faculty email.
Yale is not the first school to adopt the more ‘modern’ approach to its terminology.
The University of North Carolina stopped using the term ‘freshman in 2009,’ while Emory did the same in 2015.
Other Ivy league schools such as Cornell, Columbia and Dartmouth have also adopted ‘first-year’ also use ‘first-year.’
The new initiative is set to be instituted for the 2018 academic year.
When asked to explain the decision, Yale spokesman Tom Conroy told the Daily Caller: ‘The college said substituting the term ‘first-year’ for ‘freshman’ was in wide and growing use.’
The changes will be made to official correspondence and literature the school produces, such as pamphlets (pictured) and letters.