doctor/professor/etc

[Bethany K. Dumas]

On Sat, 14 May 2005, Roger Shuy wrote:

>When I first started teaching graduate courses in the seventies, hoping to
>develop a spririt of egalitarianism and holding the fond hope that as we
>worked on linguistic problems together we would reach a somewhat equal
>plane, I suggested that my students call me by my first name. A few of my
>American students did this, at least in my earlier days of teaching, but the
>idea was a complete flop with my foreign students, who couldn't seem to bear
>to be  so informal.  By the time I reached my fifties, even the American
>students gave up even trying. I guess I couldn't pull this one off, no
>matter how hard I tried. Maybe it wasn't a very good idea in the first
>place.

I did this when I came to the U of TN in 1974. My graduate students did
call me by my first name - then I learned that only female professors
were being called by our first names. (I did not change my practice.)

Bethany