It's one thing if you just got your degree and you're super-excited about being "DR DAVIS."
It's another thing entirely if you address all of your colleagues as "Heidi" or "Jeremy" regardless of seniority and then sign your email DR DAVIS and expect them to use your title in return.
Listen, missy, I believe you may be struggling with some inadequacies here. We are colleagues. And you are somewhat a junior colleague, new to the profession and to our instititution. We were willing to overlook the excitement of your brand-new title, but you are now just getting ridiculously anti-social.
It's a social cue. Learn to read them. Or hand your PhD back in for further review.
QUESTION: I don't know, what is your relationship with your title? Do you use your title with other PhDs? Other colleagues? Or reserve it for classrooms and reservations at fancy restaurants?
And you are somewhat a junior colleague, new to the profession and to our institution....
ReplyDelete...another reason to hire in-house adjuncts for those full-time slots. All of this BS is out of the way.
But what is all this "jr"/"sr" stuff? Didn't many of us get into academia to not be in a corporate hierarchy?
Finally: I use my title in the letterhead on my job applications and other formal correspondence where I think it might be useful, or in situations like when the movie stops and someone in the theater shouts, "Is there a doctor in the house?!" At that point I stand up and start talking about my literature dissertation and all the funky languages I know.
My "Dr." is still highlighted on my mostly-professional homepage, but that will probably come down soon. Nobody calls me "Dr. Slave" except most students and I don't care if they don't. Faculty where I work use first names, regardless of "rank" and I have never been at an institution where that was otherwise.
In my experience, colleagues at all levels in the institutions where I've taught have used first names, and I have reciprocated. I've run into a few more traditional colleagues who prefer "Dr.," and I'm happy to honor that (all the more so because several such colleagues have been African Americans old enough to have seen parents denied proper titles, and possibly to have experienced such lack of respect themselves. There's a history there, and I'm happy to respect it, and, for that matter, to respect anybody's preference for a title as long as they reciprocate -- and so far, I haven't encountered anybody who doesn't; in fact, I've usually realized that a colleague prefers titles because, though senior to me, the colleague used mine.) I don't use "Dr." socially -- unless and until I run into someone who remarks on my preference for "Ms.," at which point I happily trot out the "Dr." option. Since students seem incapable of using "Ms." (they seem to default to "Mrs.," which isn't accurate), I give them the choice of Dr, Professor, or first name. And because I use email in large part to communicate with students, I do have "PhD" after my name in my email signature (but I sign my emails above that with first name only for colleagues, and first and last for students).
ReplyDeleteI'm actually more intrigued by the graphic, which may have been floating around the internet forever, but I haven't seen before. I wish the seller had filled in "item condition" (I can think of some rather colorful ways to describe my own), and wonder whether (s)he reached the minimum bid. Based on my experience, it's set a bit high, especially for a time of year when non-TT posts are the only options available (actually, if you exclude post-docs and perhaps some visiting FT positions, it's set *way* high).
I really only use it on paper (or electronically) if I've written something in a professional capacity that has my name on it and the situation calls for it. I use it in my email signature, but only if that email is going out in a professional capacity, otherwise, I shut off the signature before hitting send. General discussion emails between colleagues, I don't use it there. And I never use it with office staff either. That'd be a douchebag thing to do.
ReplyDeleteOf course I use it with undergrads as a means of putting distance between me and them. My syllabus has me named as Dr. Cranky, without so much as a first initial. The room gets really chilly when one of them uses my first name. I don't use their first names either, Mr. or Ms. plus last name, if I ever have to address them. I am just old enough to be their mother (ok, I'd be a teen mom, but still). I'm running the show, so we'll stick to the formalities.
I only use "Dr." when writing letters of recommendation. I have "Ph.D." in my email signature only because my dean instructed me to do so (she thought it would look better for the college), but I sign my emails with my first and last names for students and first name for colleagues.
ReplyDeleteBecause I am often perceived to be less authoritative (being diminutive in stature and voice, and by virtue of my gender), I introduce myself to students as "Dr. Cynic" on Syllabus Day. But if they call me something else, I don't fuss.
I only use them when students are involved. I sign my emails to students "Dr. CMP" and when introducing (or refering to) a colleague in front of a group of students I will use Dr. or Prof. Smith.
ReplyDeleteOnly to impress the ladies.
ReplyDeleteHeh heh, Beaker.
ReplyDeleteI never use Dr. Undergrads get to call me Professor Toaf. Everyone else can use my first name, Frog. For recommendations, I sign Frog A. Toad, Professor of Hamster-Fur Weaving.
I agree about African Americans and people in other underrepresented groups, so if someone wants "Dr." I'll use it. On me, I think it's pretentious.
Oops, Toad, not Toaf. Though that would be funny too.
ReplyDeletePersonally I think this is bleedover from certain Central European academic cultures; how a person is addressed in Germany after they break the Ph.D./M.D. barrier is ruthlessly fixed: Herr Doktor X, Frau Dokor Y, etc. You even see that in the German military: Google "Lieutenenant-General Dr. Hans Speidel" for proof of that....Compared to places like Germany or Japan, America is far more laid back about titles.
ReplyDeleteMy full-time work is outside of the academy in a large, taxpayer-funded organization that requires the highly educated to get much of its hardest work done. Yet in this environment, I have an immediate, visceral reaction when confronted with use "Dr" or PhD" in their email exchanges. In fact, I'm likely to ask out loud "what medical school did he/she go to..." (and mostly our "Doctors" are NOT the medical type).
ReplyDeleteAt the SLAC where I adjunct: we're all on a first name basis, so "Miserable" works just fine.
Students will occasionally toss the "professor" word my way in an email, which first inflates my ego and then just makes me feel old.
In my classrooms, it's first names unless students aren't comfortable with that (they are largely adult and mostly non-traditional, and sometimes older than me...although that's getting rarer and rarer).
I think it's rude to call a colleague with a PhD by their first name and then refer to yourself as Dr Whomever. Like you are trying so hard to elevate yourself or point out the doctorate that we ALL HAVE while belittling those around you.
ReplyDeleteI don't have to deal with this particular person face to face, so it's all emails, all first names then signed by the unnecessary title. It seems like screaming out for attention, but it garners the wrong kind...
As for students, I make em start with "Professor" or "Doctor" but after they show some enthusiasm for the subject or willingness to follow directions, I give them the whole "Oh, no please call me Academic."
** Someone without commenting ability has sent this.**
ReplyDeleteGuess what, we don’t all have a doctorate! Students usually ask something about how to address me somewhere in the first week of classes, and I tell them they’re welcome to call me Master X, since I have a terminal master’s degree. They mostly call me FirstName after that, though some of my students with military background have a hard time with that, and I suggest Prof. X, even though I think technically I’m not, I’m a lecturer.
As far as hierarchies in academia, don’t fool yourself. At least in Hamster Harvesting, the industry hierarchy is _much_ more flexible than academia. Many people in the upper echelons are running companies or large international projects with master’s degrees, and advancement is more likely to be the result of how good you are at things and how hard you want to push for a position. There is an informal ceiling at the undergrad level, but it’s higher than the equivalent in the academy, where you certainly can’t teach, and companies will frequently partially fund your master’s if you want to get into the next level. Academia has one of the most rigid hierarchies outside of the military.
- Another Anonymous Teacher
Oh, I know we have hierarchies. I am just surprised over and over again how academics, who purportedly dislike control and limits on freedom, who are so enlightened and so egalitarian, seem to take things like rank, regalia, ceremony, titles etc. just a tad too seriously sometimes. Most people seem cool about it and seem to find the right balance, but this blog is full of stories about enough exceptions to make me wonder.
ReplyDeleteI use it professionally, but not outside of work. As for work, I use my first name with any other employee of the university. Students can call me anything (Dr., Professor, Mr.) but my first name. I'm their teacher, not their buddy.
ReplyDeleteWhen I have a university employee in class I go by my title during class, my first name afterwards... And I always use "Dr." with other professors until they tell me otherwise.
Outside of work I only use it in a very few circumstances. When my mother was in the hospital a couple years ago I found I got a better response when I used "Dr" in my messages. My sister-in-law is a nurse and she said medical staff are trained to answer messages with a "Dr." on the name first, even if it's not an MD. Works for me.
I confess though, I do have "Dr." on my address labels.
I'm absolutely 100% fine with first names and only toss on the Dr. or PhD when it would benefit an application for a grant, a paper, or a recommendation (I'm sure there are other reasons, but those remain the key few).
ReplyDeleteI switched fields about a year and a half into my undergrad studies. I loved that all our teachers went by first names rather than "Dr. Whomever." They were pretty personally invested in us doing well, and many of us have now gone on to be successful professors on our own. I want to be like those people, not like the professors in my first field of study that looked like deer in the headlights if you showed up to office hours and then sent you to the learning center, where nobody knew how to answer your question.... but that's another story for another time....