Two committees looking for ways to improve the freshman experience will recommend that the College change the name of the Freshmen Office to the Office of First-Year Students.
The Intellectual Life and Orientation sub-committees of the Committee on the First-Year Experience will suggest the change in a report they plan to release at the end of the term.
"It looks that parts of the Committee on the First-Year Experience will recommend the change," Dean of Freshmen Peter Goldsmith said.
Goldsmith chairs the Orientation sub-committee and is a member of the Intellectual Life sub-committee.
The First-Year Committee, chaired by Dean of the College Lee Pelton, is also considering creating freshmen residence halls.
Goldsmith said the potential name change is a result of changing times and changing attitudes but is not a response to an overwhelming campus-wide concern. "It is not coming out of a sense of absolute necessity," he said.
"There is a lot in a name," Goldsmith said. "There are reasons why names change over time. More often we refer to adult females as women rather than girls."
"The term 'freshman' connotates images of maleness, where males fulfill certain roles more naturally than women," Goldsmith said.
"My sense of the growing consensus is that we would be better served by a term which would not in any way carry gender-specific connotations," Goldsmith said.
"The same arguments and same issues as [The Dartmouth Outing Club's] Freshman trips being changed to DOC Trips are being made," Goldsmith said.
Goldsmith said making the name change could be complicated by the changes that would occur in the titles of employees in the Dean of Freshmen Office and wherever else freshmen is referred to by the College. Courses called Freshmen Seminars might have to be changed in name as well, he said.
Ryan Carey '96, a member of the Intellectual Life sub-committee, said the change is not large and would help boost the College's image.
"We felt that it is such a minor change and would affect no one," he said. "The change would be something that might help the general atmosphere at Dartmouth. It would make it seem more open and there would be one less term that could be deemed offensive."
The First-Year Committee consists of three sub-committees: intellectual life, orientation and residential life.
The Orientation sub-committee will most likely make a similar recommendation. "The consensus has not been reached formally, but it is likely," Meghan Dunleavy '94, a member of the sub-committee, said.
Dunleavy said the change "is something that has been championed by Peter Goldsmith," and is something she believes in as well.
"We call them first-year students when we address them, why don't we just change the name officially?" she said.
Goldsmith said he is uncertain which administrator will have the authority to implement the recommendations made by the committees.
Pelton was out of town and could not be reached for comment.
