Earlier this month, Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication (ESHCC) adopted a guide to make education more inclusive. In the document Use of Gender Inclusive Language, the faculty council sets out to make the faculty a safer space.
In their letter to the ESHCC Management Team and the Diversity Officer, the faculty council explains that misgendering and misidentifying students is not a rare phenomenon in the classroom, and that both students and staff support the use of a more inclusive vocabulary.
The guidelines are divided into three segments: before the start of class, in the classroom, and when writing. They include, for instance, mentioning your preferred pronouns in your email signature, asking students or lecturers how they would like to be addressed, using non-discriminatory language and avoiding gendered nouns.
Everyone is free to decide whether or not they use the document, but hopefully it is a first step in normalising the use of inclusive language. The smallest effect counts, or as faculty council member Pepijn Op de Beek said in an interview with EM, “even if only help one student, that would be already very nice.”