Rigorous

                                                                  Rigorous

Donna Riley, is head of the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Prof. Riley's contribution to our merriment was her attack on the very idea of rigor. In an article for Engineering Studies called “Rigor/Us: Building Boundaries and Disciplining Diversity with Standards of Merit” she argued that academic “rigor” is merely a blind for “white male heterosexual privilege.” “The term, she wrote, “has a historical lineage of being about hardness, stiffness, and erectness; its sexual connotations—and links to masculinity in particular-are undeniable. ”There is also the matter of making sure that the bridge you design doesn't collapse, but Prof. Riley doesn't bother herself with such pedestrian concerns. “Rigor," she intones, “may be a defining tool, revealing how structural forces of power and privilege operate to exclude men of color and women, students with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, first generation and low-income students, and non traditionally aged students.” 

And Prof. Riley gets extra credit for extending her attack on rigor to the notion of “Scientific knowledge itself," which, according to her, “is gendered, raced, and colonizing."