Julianne M. Malveaux recently threw what she termed a “hot tantrum” on Facebook after she received an e-mail from a co-worker that addressed a male colleague as “Dr.” but her as “Ms.”
Ms. Malveaux has a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, holds three honorary degrees, and recently stepped down as president of Bennett College after five years in office. “I don’t mean to be picky or petty, but I do not know if it is gender, ignorance, or general disrespect,” she wrote on her status update. “At 58, I am too old, and have paid too many dues for this.”
Ms. Malveaux doesn’t normally use Facebook as a channel to broadcast her gripes. Her daily posts are generally on the inspirational side. But she shared her annoyance with her 5,000-plus friends because, she said during a phone interview, “I wanted to see what others thought.”
Two hours later, she had received almost 200 comments and more than 1,100 “likes.”
“It’s not picky, it’s not petty, it’s earned and deserved,” wrote Michael L. McCrimmon, a graduate of the Harvard School of Business and a managing partner at M2Synergistics, a consulting firm. “You are quite accomplished and extremely well regarded, and so the weaker minded and insecure, would try to do whatever possible to either pull you down by making you ‘common’ or pulling themselves up by disavowing your achievement and thereby making themselves an equal.”
Joan C. Browning, a freelance writer and a civil-rights activist, wrote, “Neither gender, ignorance, or general disrespect is acceptable. Simply delete and do not respond.”
Others told Ms. Malveaux not to sweat what they considered to be an innocent oversight. “Maybe you’re reading too much into it because of your experience,” wrote Lance Williams, a student at Carnegie Mellon University.
Little seems to inspire as much passion among academics as the question of titles. How scholars feel about them often depends on their age, gender, race, upbringing, educational experiences, and standing in the academic world.
For some, being called “Dr.” is clearly a serious matter. They view the title as hard-earned, after the seven or more years of work and sacrifice they have put into a doctoral degree, and they believe those who don’t use it are breaching professional etiquette. Some Ph.D.'s say they use their title as more of a practical matter, to establish authority in the classroom and to separate themselves from students.
But others scoff at the use of honorifics. Insisting on being referred to as “Dr.” is gauche, these critics say, and often betrays an insecurity about identity, accomplishments, or academic status.
I’m a Doctor, Too
“I insist on equivalency,” Ms. Malveaux said. “What gets my back up is when folks choose, in a professional setting, to offer men their props, but not women. What’s even more galling is when other black women choose to disrespect me.”
Some people have demanded respect on her behalf. Last month when Ms. Malveaux appeared on C-Span’s Book TV, a few women phoned into the show to chastise the program’s host, Peter Slen, for not calling his guest “Dr. Malveaux.” Mr. Slen explained that C-Span’s policy is to reserve the title for medical doctors only.
In fact, that is also The Chronicle’s policy, which has spurred passionate debates on comment threads, in letters to the editor, and in e-mails to reporters insisting that we change our style guidelines.
“The CHE’s policy of only using ‘Dr.’ for those with an M.D. has always irritated me,” one reader wrote in a comment last month. “After all, this is a site targeted to readers with a Ph.D., yet The Chronicle sticks to an anachronistic—and indefensible—practice that few other publications still use. And keep in mind that the original meaning of the word doctor is ‘to teach.’ Now, who comes closer to meeting the standards of that definition?”
(The Chronicle writes about many professors of architecture, business, fine arts, law, and even many college presidents who do not hold a Ph.D. because it isn’t the terminal degree in their disciplines. We find “Mr.” and “Ms.” more egalitarian for our audience.)
Within academe, titles tend to be used more regularly by some kinds of scholars than by others. “In elite places, the title is simply assumed, perhaps as a matter of snobbery,” Rudolph M. Bell, a history professor at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, wrote in an e-mail. “Unemployed Ph.D.'s always use the Dr.”
For himself, Mr. Bell never puts Ph.D. after his name, on his syllabus, or in any of his correspondence. He likes undergraduates to call him “Professor” because, he said, “the term represents an official status, like vice president of a bank.” With graduate students (including this reporter, who was one of his students) he prefers “Rudy,” though he sometimes feels mildly jarred when undergraduates call him by his first name.
Mark D. Naison, a history professor at Fordham University, came from a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn where he says other kids picked on him. “Because I take pride in my working-class origins, I never wanted my academic title to be used outside of a professional setting,” he wrote during a Facebook chat. “But there are many academics who grew up as introverts and outsiders, picked on or ostracized by other kids, so they may retreat into their title as a mark of pride and defiance.”
Kwame Zulu Shabazz, an Africana-studies professor at Winston-Salem State University, isn’t big on titles either. “I tell my students to call me Brotha Shabazz. I typically address my students as ‘brotha’ this or ‘sista’ that,” he said. “I suppose I lean toward an egalitarian outlook.”
I’m Not Your Friend
A big no-no for many professors is for undergraduate students to call them by their first names, but faculty say it happens all the time. Younger generations tend to be more informal than their predecessors, faculty say. More broadly, educators add, they feel devalued in American society.
Jeffrey J. Williams, an English professor at Carnegie Mellon University who has written about academic professionalism and status anxiety, said that professors are often vilified in the political discourse and by critics who question the value of higher education. Because of that, he said, many professors feel defensive.
“With all the cutbacks on pensions and teaching positions, they are feeling under attack,” he said. “Professors feel like there’s not enough respect for the degrees we’ve earned, the research and teaching we do, even though we are highly trained and have sacrificed to do it.”
Because the Ph.D. has become more prevalent, it is less exalted, and some faculty fight that by using the “Dr.” title.
It’s typical for people to assert distinction, especially when their profession is in jeopardy or they feel devalued. Mr. Williams has seen many contingent faculty make a point of noting their Ph.D. status.
“Adjuncts are in a more precarious position in academe,” he said. “They want to stress that ‘I am not just an adjunct, a grad student, or somebody off the street. I am a doctor even if I have a crap job.’”
Titles also help professors remain objective in the classroom, some say. As they grade students, write recommendations, and make nominations for fellowships, they don’t want to send a message of having too much familiarity with any student.
“It’s hard when you feel like your friend gave you a B-minus when you wanted an A,” said Imani Perry, a professor at Princeton University’s Center for African American Studies. “I care about my students, but I’m not their peer. The title cues students to put on their academic roles with me, not their ‘I got so wasted last night’ face.”
Some professors say undergraduates should be more aware of the high level of academic expertise their college instructors bring to the classroom, and titles are one way to signal that. “What bugs me is when students call me Ms. Carnevale,” said Nancy Carnevale, a history professor at Montclair State University. “They still think of college as an extension of high school.”
Fighting Assumptions
Race, gender, and economic background affect people’s decision about whether to use the Ph.D. title, said Deborah L. Rhode, a Stanford University Law School professor who has written a book titled In Pursuit of Knowlege: Scholars, Status, and Academic Culture (Stanford Law Books, 2006).
Ph.D.'s from working-class backgrounds worry about being accused of putting on airs around lesser-educated family members and friends. Women and people from minority groups tend to be more sensitive than their peers about titles because of the ways they have been traditionally perceived in academe. “They’ve been dismissed or devalued, so having a professional credential is more important to them,” Ms. Rhode said.
Melissa Stein, a 35-year-old assistant professor of gender studies at the University of Kentucky, said that she didn’t care about titles when she first started teaching. But she’s bothered by how students automatically call male professors, especially white men, “Professor” or “Dr.” regardless of their age or their dress. But female professors, she said, are often called “Ms.” or “Mrs.,” or by their first names.
“I have to be far more conscious about how I project authority that students unconsciously give to male instructors,” Ms. Stein said.
Ms. Stein does not insist on students using “Professor” or “Dr.” in front of her name, but says she reminds them in subtle ways that it is appropriate to do so. On the first day of class she introduces herself as Professor or Dr. Stein. Sometimes she will leave her first name off her syllabus so that students won’t be tempted to use it.
Cathy A. Trower, a senior research associate at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, said lingering social stereotypes are to blame for why women and minorities are not always assumed to carry the “Dr.” title.
“I don’t want to ascribe evil motives to people,” Ms. Trower said. “It may be a way for people to assert some form of superiority over others. They might not be conscious of it, but they have a hard time being corrected by women, minorities, or adjuncts they’ve put into another category, even if they have a Ph.D.”
Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers is a 35-year-old assistant professor of U.S. women’s history at the University of Iowa who wants her hard work and efforts to be recognized by students and colleagues at her predominantly white institution. Academe can be a cruel place for black faculty, she said. “Sometimes others look at us as if we are out of place.”
For Ms. Jones, whether or not she insists on the use of “Dr.” has depended on geography. When she lived in a racially mixed neighborhood in Newark, N.J., Ms. Jones hid her accomplishments and certainly never used the title “Dr.” “I noticed that brown, tan, and yellow folks had all these negative assumptions about me simply because I had a Ph.D. They typically assumed that I thought my education made me an authority on all things and this placed me a level or more above them. I’ve had black men insult me and women snub me for it.”
For black Ph.D.'s from older generations, however, titles have been an important mark of status that was otherwise denied. Many of those older scholars nod to their more formal Southern roots, or their undergraduate training at historically black colleges, and to a history of being addressed impolitely by white people, as a reason for using the title “Dr.” In some cases during the Jim Crow era, black parents even named their children “Doctor” as a way to garner respect.
Ms. Rhode, who has a J.D., understands why some academics are attuned to reputational differences. But she is startled when somebody calls her “Dr.,” and she finds those who pedigree themselves with a long alphabet soup behind their names to be “bordering on abnormal.”
The conventional usage of the “Dr.” title, she said, should be restricted to medical professionals.
The debate over whether or not to use the title is an insular one that matters most only to people within higher education. To outsiders it can look petty or snobby, at worst, and irrelevant and silly, at best.
“When academics use the title,” Ms. Rhode said, “it is more likely to confuse than clarify status for most Americans.”