Penn State University is making some changes in order to be more inclusive. The university has decided to drop "male-specific" words like "freshman," "sophmore" and "upperclassmen."
The proposition to use gender neutral and non-binary terminology in course and program descriptions was approved by the Penn State Faculty Senate during their final meeting of the 2020-2021 academic year.
So now titles like freshman/sophomore/junior/senior will be replaced with first-year, second-year, third-year and fourth-year.
Penn State will also replace he/him/his/ and she/her/hers with they/them/theirs or other non-gendered words like student, faculty, staff member, etc.
Should all universities make the changes?