Include me out

A friend has forwarded the email below from Bowdoin College Senior Vice President for Inclusion and Diversity Michael Reed. The email sets forth Bowdoin’s Lived Name Initiative. Is it permitted to ridicule this scheme and its supporting apparatus? Rod Dreher gets the ball rolling in “The stupidity of ‘inclusivity.'” The point here is to abolish gender classifications and foist artificial pronouns down our throats. As our informant notes, it part of “the effort to eliminate ‘binaries and impose gender fluidity, which will in turn confuse and encourage more of this.” What we have here is beyond satire, a glimpse of our dystopian future now:

From: Michael Reed
Date: December 11, 2018 at 5:42:23 PM EST
To: all_employees
Subject: Lived Name Initiative

Dear employees,

Many offices on campus have been working together since 2014 to launch the Lived Name Initiative, which lets students, faculty, and staff specify a name they go by that may differ from their legal name. Allowing people in our community to be known by the name they go by is an important part of creating an inclusive community. As an employee, you have had the opportunity to update your lived name in Workday. Beginning at the start of next semester, students will also be able to specify a lived name. If you work in any capacity with students or their data, it is important to understand this change, and details are provided below.

This welcome change benefits people who may prefer to use a middle name, who have changed their marital status, who go by a name that aligns with their gender identity, or who use a different name in English than their native language or country of origin name.

Student names:

Beginning in January, the lived name will become the default name for students in Polaris, DegreeWorks, Blackboard, Workday, eBear, the online campus directory, and Bowdoin email display name. The lived name will be used in most of the College’s systems, except where a legal name is required or necessary. For more information about where lived and legal names for students are used on campus and externally, as well as additional details, please visit the registrar office’s Name Changes page.

Students will have the opportunity to update their lived name on the Enrollment Form at the start of the spring semester. After that, they may update their lived name at any time in the Student Biographical Change Form available through the registrar’s office. Please be intentional about looking for and using students’ lived names, since there may be name changes from the submission of the Enrollment Forms, especially this first time.

Please also be aware that students’ gender will no longer be visible in Polaris. In a second phase of this initiative, students will be given the option to select a set of pronouns that align with a student’s gender identity and which will display on class rosters and in Polaris.

Employee names:

As an employee, you can already update your lived name (distinct from your legal name) in Workday, and you can have the name Workday calls “preferred” reflected in the campus directory and in your email display name.

Beginning in January 2019, your lived name in Workday will be consistently reflected in Polaris and Blackboard for all faculty and academic advisors.

For instructions on how to change your name in Workday, please review the directions on the Workday Employee Self-Service webpage.

This initiative is sponsored by the Office of the Dean for Academic Affairs, the Office of Inclusion and Diversity, Information Technology, and the Division of Student Affairs. On behalf of the sponsors, we see this as an important step in affirming an inclusive community.

For more information, please contact Peter Wiley or Kate Stern.

Best regards,

Michael Reed
Senior Vice President for Inclusion and Diversity

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