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wakingtime
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« on: August 22, 2010, 06:52:17 PM » |
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My title is instructor. "Instructor Wakingtime" doesn't sound right. It's accurate, but it's awkward and draws attention to my non-prof status--and I don't need the students looking even further down on me. Students call me professor and I don't correct them, but I never call myself that. I have a Masters. "Master Wakingtime" sounds great to me, but not to the rest of the world.
Non-profs, how do prefer to be called?
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systeme_d_
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« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2010, 06:54:39 PM » |
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If you're in the front of a classroom, you're a professor.
Professor Wakingtime is your best choice.
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Systeme_D is right. <rah rah RESEARCH!> |
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systeme_d_
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« Reply #2 on: August 22, 2010, 07:00:56 PM » |
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Sorry for the double post, but just to clarify:
My students don't call me Associate Professor Système D. Nor do they call my colleagues Distinguished Professor Coolguy, or Assistant Professor Thoughtful.
"Professor" in the instructional capacity is not a rank, it is a title. And it is an appropriate one.
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Systeme_D is right. <rah rah RESEARCH!> |
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wakingtime
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« Reply #3 on: August 22, 2010, 07:01:06 PM » |
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If you're in the front of a classroom, you're a professor.
Professor Wakingtime is your best choice.
Really? Why do I think that TT folks, if they found out, will think that I am claiming a title I don't deserve? Am I paranoid? |
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systeme_d_
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« Reply #4 on: August 22, 2010, 07:01:29 PM » |
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If you're in the front of a classroom, you're a professor.
Professor Wakingtime is your best choice.
Really? Why do I think that TT folks, if they found out, will think that I am claiming a title I don't deserve? Am I paranoid? Yes. |
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Systeme_D is right. <rah rah RESEARCH!> |
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alwaysanon
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« Reply #5 on: August 22, 2010, 07:03:59 PM » |
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If you're in the front of a classroom, you're a professor.
Professor Wakingtime is your best choice.
Really? Why do I think that TT folks, if they found out, will think that I am claiming a title I don't deserve? Am I paranoid? Not paranoid, precisely. But if someone on the TT were to actually get upset that you, an instructor, were called "Professor" by your students, that's their own problem, not yours. Take it off your shoulders. Students know a great deal less about the academic pecking order than we think they do, usually. To most of them, someone in front of a class is a professor, and that's all there is to it. I am also an "instructor", but I have a PhD, so I normally introduce myself as Dr. Me, but if someone calls me Professor Me, I don't correct them. Caveat: this is in the North American context. In the UK, for instance, "professor" is a specific academic rank. |
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educator1
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« Reply #6 on: August 23, 2010, 01:20:03 PM » |
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This is one thing that I am not at all concerned by. I don't spend any time telling my students how to address me. Most use the generic "Professor Ed", some use "Dr. Ed". I have never had a student address me by my first name (it is on my syllabus), nor by any other moniker that I would consider disrespectful.
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advil
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« Reply #7 on: August 23, 2010, 01:24:17 PM » |
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It's accurate, but it's awkward and draws attention to my non-prof status--and I don't need the students looking even further down on me. Students call me professor and I don't correct them, but I never call myself that.
In my experience, undergraduates don't make or understand the various distinctions in rank among people who could be teaching them. Even when they know the person is a graduate student, they will still often call them "professor". So I wouldn't worry too much about this, honestly. As an assistant professor, I put "instructor" on my syllabi, because I think of that as a role in the classroom, not a job title. |
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llanfair
Village idiot and Very
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 23,199
Whither Canada?
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« Reply #8 on: August 23, 2010, 01:25:54 PM » |
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Students know a great deal less about the academic pecking order than we think they do, usually. To most of them, someone in front of a class is a professor, and that's all there is to it.
I am also an "instructor", but I have a PhD, so I normally introduce myself as Dr. Me, but if someone calls me Professor Me, I don't correct them.
This. MyBigUni lists me as "Dr Llanfair" on the course offerings, whereas tenured or TT faculty are listed as "Professor Whosis", which is a bit of snobbery that I refuse to engage with. Personally, I'm not bothered as long as students don't use "Mrs", "Ms", or "FirstName". I don't put anything on my syllabus but "Dr Llanfair", and I tell them right up front that either "Prof Llanfair" or "Dr Llanfair will be fine. |
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This place stinks like a pair of armoured trousers after the Hundred Years' War.
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prytania3
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« Reply #9 on: August 23, 2010, 07:23:43 PM » |
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It tends to be college specific. When I was in grad school teaching a course, real professors would get very angry if we dared to have the students address us as "professor."
Where I am now, anyone who is in front of the classroom can use professor.
When I was an instructor, I used to have them call me Instructor Prytania.
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Clowns, I tell you. Clowns.
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chaosbydesign
"I like to lyse bacteria. Did you know I'm utterly insane?"
Member-Moderator
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 12,373
I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
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« Reply #10 on: August 23, 2010, 07:57:36 PM » |
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I'm just going to get them to call me by my first name, which seems to be common in the UK. I don't have a Ph.D, and would rather be referred to as 'Chaos' than 'Ms/Miss Design' (which sounds weird to me) and professor isn't used in the UK in this way.
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Seriously, I tried to lick my own face. Ah. Typical ivory tower pedanticalness.
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changinggears
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« Reply #11 on: August 23, 2010, 09:20:31 PM » |
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If you're in the front of a classroom, you're a professor.
Professor Wakingtime is your best choice.
Really? Why do I think that TT folks, if they found out, will think that I am claiming a title I don't deserve? Am I paranoid? Yes. Thanks, system. This clears things up for me, as well. Like wakingtime, I'm an instructor with a masters and thought it might be considered presumptious to ask students to call me professor. But I was too embarassed to ask. You've cleared things up. Professor it is! |
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Quote from conjugate:
I am impressed at the level of self-awareness you show in describing your posts as "digital diarrhea," however.
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mdwlark
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« Reply #12 on: August 23, 2010, 09:25:43 PM » |
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They call me Professor Lark, Mrs. Lark (which I'm not), less often, Miss Lark, Meadow, and the one protesting his grade called me "Miss Meadow." I don't make an issue of any of them. I don't think of myself as a non-professor.
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mystictechgal
Happy in my "full, rich adulthood", and as a
Member-Moderator
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 9,937
One step at a time
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« Reply #13 on: August 23, 2010, 09:42:45 PM » |
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As is the custom at my college I call you, when talking directly to you, "Dave" or "Kate" or whatever your first name is. If addressing you formally, or talking about you with others in a formal fashion, and you have a PhD, I call you Dr. Lastname. If I am talking about you formally with others and you do not have a PhD, I call you Professor Lastname. If I am talking about you formally, or informally, in general terms, whether you have a PhD, or not, I call you "my Professor".
Professor is a perfectly acceptable term for anyone who has the credentials to regularly stand in front of a higher-education classroom full of students and credibly "profess" their knowledge of the subject matter at hand; particularly if they are being paid to do so and they are the person in charge of said classroom. That's true whether you have your PhD, your MS (or similar non-doctoral degree), or just your BA and are acting as the TA for the class.
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If a pouting pluot ploughman planted pluots in a plot, and the plot were ploughed on Pluto, would his pluot ploy play out?
"Is all the same, only different" -- Dr. H. L. |
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lizzy
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« Reply #14 on: August 23, 2010, 10:09:01 PM » |
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At my place, anyone who teaches can be called "professor." Anyone with a doctorate can be called "Dr. "
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I get cranky in the evenings.
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