Students of the taxpayer-funded University of Maine at Augusta will have the opportunity to take a college-level course all about bathrooms starting in the spring semester, studying under gender studies professor Lisa M. Botshon.
The upcoming class, “An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Bathroom,” promises to consider the various “values” surrounding the act of using the bathroom in different cultures and examine the way the “politics of identity” influences our thoughts on restrooms.
“Everyone has to go to the bathroom. However, where we go, how we go, when we go, and the ideas and values that surround that act vary among cultures and across time and space,” said a flyer advertising the course.
Students will learn about lavatories through an “interdisciplinary framework,” and will consider the practical aspects of sanitation and technology in bathrooms, as well as their significant cultural importance.
The course description does not explicitly mention the controversies caused by transgender-identifying people trying to use bathrooms meant for the opposite sex, though its mention of identity politics suggests that the issue will come up.
The class will be a full, three-credit course, held both online through Zoom and in person, featuring weekly two-hour and 45-minute lectures.
Students hoping to learn more about the cultural mores surrounding bathroom use must first have completed the school’s English 101 class.
The class isn’t proving popular among students. Currently, only three students have enrolled for the in-person version, and one student is set to take the class online.
Professor Botshon, a member of the English department, focuses her research on female writers, gender, race, and ethnicity, along with American pop culture.
Botshon is a registered Democrat and, according to publicly available payroll information, makes $93,616.23 a year in her taxpayer-funded salary as a professor at one of Maine’s many state-funded universities.
The Maine Wire reached out to Botshon, asking for more information on the class, including a syllabus.
She did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Her other Spring 2025 classes include the distinct courses “Women Writers” and “Major Women Writers.”
Botshon’s bathroom class is not the only outlandish course funded by Maine taxpayers at UMA.
Students can bask in the knowledge of “Feminist Praxis for Radical Self and Community Care,” which boldly claims, “Radical self-care is inside-out work,” and promises to teach attendees how to develop their own self-care routines.
Education students can take the “Mindful Teachers Teaching Mindfulness” course, which promises vaguely to enumerate the benefits of “practicing mindfulness.”
“Mindful teachers teaching mindfulness can reduce stress and anxiety, promote focus and deeper engagement, and improve both academic and behavioral outcomes,” said the class description.
English majors can take the “Embodied Writing” class, which will “explore approaches for writing about our bodies (e.g., athleticism, disability, habitual actions) as well as what it means to be a body writing (i.e., physical ways of composing).”
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