LGBTQIA+ Advisory Committee Recommends Changing Term ‘Freshman’

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Chancellor Advisory Committee for LGBTQ+ Advocacy’s meeting on Nov. 17 has approved a resolution to change terms like “freshman” to “first year” in order to stop students from feeling alienated.

This suggestion was brought up by Xin Huang, the chair of Women and Gender Studies at UWM, who felt the term “1^st year” is more inclusive language than “freshman” for students who do not identify as men, students who do not fall into clear class designations and for students that feel alienated from their college experience due to extending past a 4-year track.

“When we present a problem as one that is facing both students who are LGBT+ and those who are not, it’s much more likely that people will say ‘oh, that’s so sensible,’ and just adopt it,” said Chair of LGBTQ+ Studies Cary Costello.

Huang suggested starting this resolution as a university, then passing it around to “areas of interest,” including the chancellor, and possibly both enrollment services and advising. The committee approved this.

“It is so much easier to navigate a system through the years rather than the terms ‘freshman’ or ‘sophomore’ because it’s confusing to tell people what year I am,” said 5^th year student Sebastien Brown.

A possible future snag within this resolution has already been identified by the committee; advisors would need to start quantifying by credits instead of labels. However, this would also make identification easier once people have adjusted due to people no longer assuming anyone by year.

Another issue with this resolution is how people may react to this resolution. Some may refuse to use the new terms or possibly not even be informed of them. The Dean of Students Office and LGBTQIA+ Resource Center held a listening session for LGBTQIA+ students and their needs on campus. They found that LGBTQIA+ students have reported the need for inclusive language training, particularly in the Engineering department.

“It sounds like it would be hard to implement since freshman is such a familiar word in relation to sophomore, junior and senior,” said Adrielle Nelson, a student at UWM.

The Staff Senate Committee is looking to put together professional development for faculty and staff and seem to be excited that one of those trainings will be related to LGBTQIA+ issues.

“There’s a lot of staff that don’t have computers like janitors, and I think they would benefit from these types of trainings that they never would have had the opportunity to otherwise,” said Director of LGBTQIA+ Resource Center Ariana Myers.

Molly Christoffel is a student at UWM who is taking a gap semester. She agreed that the change is simpler for students.

“It’s confusing when I’m not on the same time-track as my friends,” Christoffel said. “Those terms like ‘freshman’ and ‘sophomore’ are kind of vague and don’t really portray what year of college I’m really on. Changing the terms to something that clearly say what year I am is a lot easier to explain to people.”

Myers called for a vote at the end of the discussion, and the resolution was approved with no objections.

Another policy discussed with the committee was revising the inclusive facilities policy. Notable changes were clarifying vague terms such as “to the extent possible” to avoid the possibility of the university abusing loopholes within the policy.

UWM is required to have an inclusive bathroom on every other floor in every building that has more than five floors unless there are monetary difficulties on projects. Within the policy itself, the words “to the extent reasonably possible” are not specified and could lead to UWM officials taking advantage of those loopholes. The policy was suggested to be changed “to the degree that the committee finds permissible” so that if those decisions ever came up, no one could use the policy to sideline inclusive facilities.

“Having to go up or down floors just to use the bathroom is frustrating,” said Adrien Prange, the Student Senator of Student Affairs. “You have to figure out what floor you can do something as simple as use the bathroom.”

The bathroom audit around UWM’s campus is about 55-60% done. President of Student Affairs Teresa Davis will reach out to volunteers to inform them that the bathroom audit is still occurring. This was also sent to the building chairs.

The committee also discussed the potential expansion of their team as they are the smallest of the Chancellor Advisory Committees. They discussed adding STEM representation, graduate students, international students, housing and more Student Affairs representatives. Myers also stated that she would love a co-chair. This possibility will be voted on in December.