Carleton is working on a name policy designed so students can be addressed by their preferred name by professors and other staff.
Lisa Ralph, associate registrar, said a working group has been created to develop a draft policy. She said the group has met three times so far.
“We appreciate the importance and sensitivity surrounding preferred names and will be considerate of these factors as we move forward,” she said via email.
Erica Butler, programming officer at Carleton’s Gender and Sexuality Resource Centre (GSRC), said the registrar’s office is creating the policy in consultation with Equity Services and are hoping to have it ready for the 2014 fall semester.
She said the university is looking to similar policies from other schools for guidance, and added the GSRC and Equity Services also held a small focus group to get student input.
“Currently, there is a lot of inconsistency with name usage within the university,” Butler said via email. “Students who have not yet had a legal name change (which can be expensive) don’t have a means of putting their preferred name into universal usage, so they’re constantly having to ask profs and etc. on an individual basis.”
Mel Pelley, a transgender student in her third year of music studies at Carleton, attended the focus group. She said the policy would allow students to have their preferred names on non-official university documents like campus cards, audits, email addresses, and class lists.
She said official university documents such as transcripts and diplomas would still show the student’s legal name.
“From my understanding, it’ll be something you can change through a special program through Carleton Central,” she said.
Pelley said one of the biggest concerns transgender students face in university is trying to explain their situation to professors and asking them to use their preferred names.
“It’s very nerve-wracking to try and talk to your profs about that. It’s kind of like coming out to somebody. You have to basically go up and talk to them and hope that everything is going to be cool,” she said.
After talking to professors about their situation, Pelley said another issue for transgender students would be worrying about whether professors would be consistent in using their preferred names, as class lists would contain a student’s legal name.
She said, in her experience, professors try hard to stick to preferred names, but some make mistakes as her preferred name doesn’t match her name on the class list.
“I don’t want to speak for the whole transgender community, but I personally take it with a grain of salt,” she said.
“If you know they’re actively trying to do this for you, and if they mess up every once in a while, don’t freak out or jump down their throats about it. It’s pretty obvious when they’re trying and when they’re not.”
Pelley said the policy would be “great,” and a huge help to transgender students.