Maine public university gender studies prof to teach course about bathrooms
A public university in Maine will offer a course about bathrooms in the new year, taught by a gender studies professor.
University of Maine at Augusta is offering the class, “An…

A public university in Maine will offer a course about bathrooms in the new year, taught by a gender studies professor.
University of Maine at Augusta is offering the class, “An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Bathroom,” for the spring semester.
“Everyone has to go to the bathroom,” the course description says. “It is a basic biological need. 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.
“Using an interdisciplinary framework, this course explores some of the ways that debates over concepts like health, sanitation, technology, and the politics of identity have shaped the way we think about bathrooms and vice versa.”
English professor Lisa M. Botshon will teach the course. She generally teaches classes on American literature, graphic storytelling, and women’s and gender studies, according to the university’s website.
Botshon is a registered Democrat and makes $93,616 per year, according to The Maine Wire. This is nearly double the median household income of $48,756 annually in Augusta, Maine, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The other two classes Botshon will teach in the spring 2025 semester are “Women Writers” and “Major Women Writers.”
Students will receive three credits for passing the bathroom course, which they can take either in-person or through Zoom. It will feature two lectures per week. One will be two hours. The other will be 45 minutes.
The only prerequisite to take the course is passing English 101.
Just four students had enrolled for the bathroom course as of Monday. Of those students, three are registered to take the class in person, while another will take it online.