QUERY: use of term "freshman/freshmen"

["Matthew B. Hicks" <matt -at- UNIDATA -dot- UCAR -dot- EDU>]

First off, please don't turn this into another debate over political
correctness. I'm editing an article for our newsletter and the author has
used the term "freshman meteorology majors". I seem to recall hearing
that the shifting tides of inclusive language have rendered "freshman" a
deprecated term. Is the trend in fact towards referring to these students
as "first-year students"? And does "first-year meteorology majors" mean
the same thing as "freshman meteorology majors"? (The latter question is,
I suppose, more a matter of opinion, so debate away on that one.)

Again, I don't want to debate whether current trends in usage are
foolishness or rampant oversensitivity or what-have-you. I'm interested
in hearing from people who commonly deal with these terms and know what
the current practice is. It really doesn't matter to me what the
underlying politics are; if people in the academic community see
"freshman" as a term from bygone days and are expecting to see "first-
year students", then that's what I want to use.

If anyone wants to rage against the machine, I cannot of course stop them
from doing so, but I won't be drawn into the debate.

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