Is It Me Or Are We Going Too Far?

WILL THE NITTANY LION BE REPLACED BY AN EASTERN COUGAR?

More and more I feel like I’m losing touch with the world we live in.  Yes I realize that it’s largely due to my age but I always through I was pretty understanding when it came to change and the need to accept it.  I’m not sure I can say that any longer.

Within the last few days my beloved Penn State University, which got eight years of my money as a parent of two graduates has as one newspaper called it, “become the latest college to make a move towards wokemania.”  That may be strong but it also may be correct.

The university’s faculty senate has approved a new resolution that will remove “gendered” and “binary” language from the school’s program and course descriptions that are considered not to be inclusive.  In a document released that explains the rational for the change, “the University, as with most all academic institutions world-wide, has grown out of a typically male-centered world and as such many terms in our lexicon carry a strong, male-centric, binary character to them.”

So what does this mean?  Terms like freshman, sophomore, junior and senior will be replaced by first year, second year, etc.  Upperclassmen and underclassmen will go away with terms like lower division and upper division replacing them.  The resolution said the current words are “decidedly male-specific” or in some cases “both sexist and classist.” In addition the school is looking to get rid of gendered pronouns like him/her and he/she with them/they as it will make students feel more comfortable.

Stealing a question from someone on Twitter in reference to the school’s nickname, “How long before the male term Nittany Lion is replaced by the gender neutral Eastern Cougar?’  I certainly hope it’s after I’ve left this world.