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[voxprincipalis]

You keep your watch set to a reliable source (I use Official US Time which uses the USNO to help keep track... hey, I'm only 8 seconds slow!).

Is it just me, or is it pretty frightening that the URL for that is "time.gov"? The government officially controls time now?

Eeeeeek.

VP

[drsyn]

You keep your watch set to a reliable source (I use Official US Time which uses the USNO to help keep track... hey, I'm only 8 seconds slow!).

Is it just me, or is it pretty frightening that the URL for that is "time.gov"? The government officially controls time now?

Eeeeeek.

VP

Truely scary - but actually, I start class when the big hand on the clock in the back of the room reaches the 12 and the little hand is on the 8.

I haven't answered her email - first, I don't think that I can avoid being sarcastic and second, I don't want to start defending every move I make.

[dr_evil]

I haven't answered her email - first, I don't think that I can avoid being sarcastic and second, I don't want to start defending every move I make.

If you can avoid being sarcastic...nah, nevermind.  I don't think you can either. ;)

I occasionally get a slightly different question: "Are we ever going to get out of class early?"  Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it.

[drsyn]

I haven't answered her email - first, I don't think that I can avoid being sarcastic and second, I don't want to start defending every move I make.

If you can avoid being sarcastic...nah, nevermind.  I don't think you can either. ;)

I occasionally get a slightly different question: "Are we ever going to get out of class early?"  Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it.

One of my favorite quotes, "Education is the only area where people demand LESS for their money."


(Course, I have forgotten who said it......)

[jeffreyhall]

You keep your watch set to a reliable source (I use Official US Time which uses the USNO to help keep track... hey, I'm only 8 seconds slow!).

Is it just me, or is it pretty frightening that the URL for that is "time.gov"? The government officially controls time now?

Eeeeeek.

VP

The Federal Government has used its powers under the commerce clause of the Constitution to standardize time in the Unites States since 1918.  See for example http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/daylight_time.html

[angel]

Okay. Term started today, and a couple of hours after the first introductory class I receive this email:

Dear Professor Angel,

I write to tell you I am dropping your class. I think we will clash.

Sincerely,
Former Student

Okay, then. I don't know the student and s/he doesn't appear on my roster.  I'm freed from a potential problem I never knew I had.

I wonder what the student thought would lead to a 'clash', though. The syllabus? My suit? 

I don't want to know, but I want to know, you know?

[mrhistory]

OK, if I had not seen this with my own eyes I would not believe it was true. First you have to understand that at X State U, if you are in front of a lab or class and you are male you are called "Dr." or maybe "Professor" (but the default here is "Dr"--drives the art faculty nuts).  You can look 12, wear a ripped band tour T and jeans but you are "Dr. Whoever"   If you are a woman, you are far more likely to be called "Mrs. Whoever"  (not Ms. but Mrs.).  YOu can put it on the syllabus, the blackboard and introduce yourself but you will likely still be called Mrs.   One colleague who is justifiably annoyed by this does an intro that includes the lighthearted statement that "a zillion years of school. lots of student loans, and a law against marrying your father means I am NOT Mrs. Whoever! I am Dr. Whoever"  I've seen it and she does it well. STudents laugh and most never call her Mrs. Whoever again.  Today after her first class we are talking while she is idly checking email, across it comes this gem.

Mrs. Whoever (yes, Mrs!)
I've decided to drop your class because even though my roomate said you are the best for this class, you are too feminazi for me with all the "doctor" stuff you said. I think women should be proud to be "Mrs" whoever they are. Even if they are not married. I'm not comfortable calling a lady "doctor" unless she is a real one (medical kind). Then she earned it.

signed,  Joe Student

We laugh at the sheer craziness of it and I realize that I've had him in class---you got it, he never thought a PhD in History wasn't "real" and always, unfailingly, called me Dr. History---but I'm male.

[red_queen]

Oh. my. god. A feminazi? This is so funny... and yet so disturbing.

I'm also at an institution where male profs are 'Dr' by default. I usually get Mrs. but often get 'Miss' instead. *Miss*, like I'm six years old. It drives me up the wall and across the ceiling.

I do something very similar to your friend (including the laws against marrying fathers), and my students thus far have responded the same way you described. I had only one problem with one student who insisted on calling me Miss despite all that, though he would say in class 'I learned in Dr. (male pro's) seminar that...'. The other students would jump in immediately and correct him. After a while he stopped addressing me by name, including in emails. 

[mrhistory]

Oh. my. god. A feminazi? This is so funny... and yet so disturbing.

I'm also at an institution where male profs are 'Dr' by default. I usually get Mrs. but often get 'Miss' instead. *Miss*, like I'm six years old. It drives me up the wall and across the ceiling.

I do something very similar to your friend (including the laws against marrying fathers), and my students thus far have responded the same way you described. I had only one problem with one student who insisted on calling me Miss despite all that, though he would say in class 'I learned in Dr. (male pro's) seminar that...'. The other students would jump in immediately and correct him. After a while he stopped addressing me by name, including in emails. 

I was walking to lunch with the same colleague one day and a student stopped us and said "Hi Dr. History, Hi Mrs. Whoever. Mrs. Whoever? I have a question about..."  She smiled and said "Dr. Whoever" He looked at her and said "Yeah, anyway, Mrs. Whoever, what were we supposed to read for Friday?"  She smiled and stared at him until he said, "um, yeah, OK. DR. Whoever!"

But, its OK because our students are *so* polite. They say "ma'm" and "sir!"  Anyway, that's what our chair says. As for "Mrs./Dr. Whoever?"  She just got a job offer today and will leave our passive aggressive paradise... too bad for us--both colleagues and students. She's a good teacher and one of the few good colleagues

Not something I ever saw or heard of in my colleges. If I was a woman I'd have permanently clenched teeth around here trying not to scream.

[infopri]

Not something I ever saw or heard of in my colleges. If I was a woman I'd have permanently clenched teeth around here trying not to scream.

I worked once in a dept where the program director, a woman in her 60s, was constantly addressed by students as Mrs. OldProfessor.  It really galled her, both because she wanted to be called Dr. (she was one of the few dept faculty who actually had a doctorate) or at least Professor, and because Mrs. wasn't even accurate; she had never married.  (You'd think students would want to stay on the program director's happy side!  She wielded much power over their lives...)

[red_queen]

"But, its OK because our students are *so* polite. They say "ma'm" and "sir!"

Aargh!  I get the same thing your friend does regularly: I'll be standing with a male professor and we'll get 'Hi, Dr. X, hi Miss Queen. Thankfully my (male) chair thinks it's intolerable and he is the first one to interject "Dr. Red Queen" (he introduces me to students as Dr. Queen, and they respond with 'miss'.)

But there are faculty here who think it's okay because of the politeness of students, and that makes me grit my teeth. If it's someplace like UVA where no one is Dr. or Prof., okay. But even then I wouldn't be 'Miss' or 'Mrs.'.

[fiona]

Anyone calls me Missus, I tell them I prefer to be called Your Majesty.

Sometimes it works.

The Fiona

[case_insensitive]

"But, its OK because our students are *so* polite. They say "ma'm" and "sir!"

Aargh!  I get the same thing your friend does regularly: I'll be standing with a male professor and we'll get 'Hi, Dr. X, hi Miss Queen. Thankfully my (male) chair thinks it's intolerable and he is the first one to interject "Dr. Red Queen" (he introduces me to students as Dr. Queen, and they respond with 'miss'.)

Happens to me all the time. I used to think it was because I was so young when I got my PhD but i'm over 40 now and have plenty of gray hair, so that's clearly not it.

When a student addresses me as Mrs. Insensitive, I usually tell them that Mrs. Insensitive is my mother... Which is probably horribly rude on my part... but I do tell them my name, on the first day of class, is Dr. Insensitive and they are welcome to call me that or Dr. I, if they prefer... and then I still get Miss or Ms. Insensitive all the time...

Polite is better than impolite, of course. But wrong is wrong.

[case_insensitive]

Not something I ever saw or heard of in my colleges. If I was a woman I'd have permanently clenched teeth around here trying not to scream.

Thank you for being perceptive, Dr. Mrhistory!

[mrhistory]

Not something I ever saw or heard of in my colleges. If I was a woman I'd have permanently clenched teeth around here trying not to scream.

Thank you for being perceptive, Dr. Mrhistory!

Isn't it awful that you want to thank me, and that I'd understand why?  BTW, the title is just the tip of the iceberg here in terms of "gender climate."   But, on that subject, my view is that coming to college requires so many new things to be learned. This is one of them---why should this be dismissed? And worse, excused as "cultural?"  Its rudeness.