At the Great Divide

If you attend Hood, please do not discuss this with anyone until it is published.



Recently, it has come to my attention that Residence Life finds the terms “freshmen” and “dormitory/dorms” unacceptable. Ironically, no recently enacted Hood policy offends me more.
It has been decided that all Residence Life staff members must henceforth use the less derogatory terms “first-year students” and “residence halls” at all times. Residence Life staff members have told me that these new terms are quickly becoming the standard vocabulary for higher learning institutions and the old terms are no longer suitable. I am unsure of who exactly is being encouraged to use this new language under the official policy, but at the hall meeting I attended last week if someone said “freshmen” or “dorms” they were corrected, rather loudly and rudely, by at least three people.
I’m not going to spend time here giving you Residence Life’s explanation of the changes. I’m sure if you are curious you can easily pull a sarcastic explanation out of an RA. I will tell you that at least one Residence Life staff member has admitted that the new changes are intended to improve Hood’s image.
There are several reasons why I find this new action to be disagreeable. Such a policy is harmful mainly based on its principle. Censorship often begins with political correctness. Altering language does not change reality; it only serves to inhibit our ability to achieve a productive discussion on any given subject. All of this begs the question, what exactly does Residence Life have to censor?
Apparently a dorm is a place where unspeakable things happen and a residence hall is for wholesome learning and fun supervised activities.
In the interest of helping you make this distinction, I’m now going to officially expose some things that have absolutely happened in dorms at Hood since I have lived in them; dirt, people passing out in your bathroom that don’t even go to Hood, mirrors being thrown down stair wells, vomit being projected down stair wells, mysterious pieces of clothing hanging off of fire extinguishers, windows being punched out, blood being left around the punched out window for several days, sex in the showers, floods, power outages, fire alarms, sub woofers, dryers that don’t dry, people stumbling into your room at six in the morning and peeing on your carpet, racism, homophobia, roommate disagreements, political disagreements, social disagreements, disagreements about the quantity of hair left in the shower drains, and of course disagreements about why all of these things are so unspeakable we need to come up with a new term for where they take place.
I do not have a problem with Hood calling dorms residence halls in promotional literature, in campus tours, at open houses etc. Hood is a business and if strategic language choices will convince more students to apply and parents to fork over cash, that is their prerogative. However, I do have an issue with Hood indoctrinating current students with this language, perhaps in the hopes of changing our thoughts and secondarily our actions. It’s a bit too Orwellian for comfort.
It is difficult to argue that no one learns anything valuable in a “dorm.” What better place to learn about yourself than a stressful environment? The most important lessons one learns at Hood do not occur in the classroom, but most often in those unspeakable dormitories.
Which leads me to why I find the condemnation of the word freshmen even more patronizing. Freshmen are right now, as you are reading this article, going through one of the most turbulent transitions in their lives. Maybe they are revaluating personal morals and values that they have never questioned before. Perhaps for the first time, they are dealing with very adult situations. Judging from my experience living with many college-aged adults, I would reckon several freshmen are or know someone who has been suicidal in their dorm. Freshmen residents have not only left home to deal with situations similar to the aforementioned, but they also have to take responsibility for their academic life in the meantime.
The freshmen deserve to be respected for their efforts. Acting as if they cannot psychologically handle the word “freshmen” after what they have probably been through already this semester is absolutely preposterous. They do not deserve to be treated like sensitive children as the movement to call them “first-years” implies.
As an aside, if I hear one more person tell me the term freshmen is offensive to women I might have a conniption. As a feminist, another one of those words many people find the need to censor and degrade, I have to say this is not in line with the type of thought I support at all. I do not go around waving a Mary Daly style, language-altering banner that reads “Womyn’s rights!” These are clearly not the types of actions that change much of anything.
These small annoyances might not seem horribly important as you read this now. As it stands, these changes poke at my ethical funny bone, but have not yet reached a crisis.
There is a point where indoctrination can become very dangerous. You might ask some students of the University of Delaware. Their Residence Life department went so far as to mandate very personal questionnaires and meetings aimed at forcing students to think “politically correctly.” Their version of political correctness defined racism as such; “A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination…”
When the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education stepped in, the president dealt with a P.R. nightmare and had to end the program. I would encourage whoever is making these Residence Life decisions to read the full article on the National Association of Scholars website. I can assure you it is horrifying.
I am also under the impression that many students are not wholly satisfied with Residence Life. Perhaps they might stop having meetings about changing our language and instead try to do something more productive.
One last point – for the most part the RAs and the ACs/GRDs I’ve been associated with have done a wonderful job. I can tell you that their judgments and actions have not always been congruent with the rules, but those overseeing my dorms have acted very wisely and compassionately in trying situations. Because these grunts of Residence Life live with the vomit and the drama they deserve more respect than anyone else working in the department. I recommend those making decisions do not waste their time any further with this garbage.

because sometimes I write things here that perhaps the whole world shouldn't know I'm going private. Well and because Cassie finally got one of these things I won't feel so bad about leaving my loyal reader out.

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