title use in universities

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Here at Penn, it is more likely that people will be addressed as "Doctor"
since there are many people with doctorates who are not (what Penn calls
"standing faculty", i.e. in line for promotions) "professors", e.g.
lecturers of various sorts.  So in my dept., you get "doctored" a lot,
because it's easier for the staff and others to just use one title, in the
way that Laura is referring to it--as egalitarian.

Way back in the late 50's or early 60's Susan Erwin-Tripp published an
article that described title and name use in academia, with a flow-chart
that showed the various choices people made. I used to use this in
classes, and haven't looked at it in a while, but there was a factor she
referred to as "dispensation" where the "higher" status person gives
permission to the "lower" one to use FN or whatever, after which the lower
one then has to get used to that; that lower status person may engage in
"no-naming" (no name, no title) for a while, as a way to avoid the sticky
issue.  I can't remember where this paper is published (is it in Hymes
reader), but I bet things are not much different from then.


Hal Schiffman

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Laura Miller wrote:

> One issue no one has mentioned is that when students are socialized to use "Mr" "Mrs" and "Ms" for their instructors, they often automatically address women of a certain age as "Mrs."  With so many unmarried female academics, as well as women who don't change  their names after marriage, continually being addressed as "Mrs." becomes tiresome and irritating. In some ways, then, using the title "Professor," to address all teaching staff as some schools do, is more egalitarian, because it isn't  marking someone's age or  marital status.
> Laura
>
>
> >>> "Patrick, Peter L" <patrickp at essex.ac.uk> 07/23/03 07:58 AM >>>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Patrick, Peter L
> Sent: 21 July 2003 15:26
> To: 'Francis M. Hult'
> Subject: RE: ... Note title use (now on universities)
>
>
> wasn't this usage at Chicago (and other elite US institutions, to judge from what i've heard)
> just a reflection of the older British norm? which is partly why it would have seemed to be
> prestigious in the US... i don't notice any difference between current US and British title
> usage in universities -- my dept. actually has 9 "Professors", and only the woman in the
> bank, or phone-centre salespeople, ever use the title to me-- but undoubtedly the Brits have
> been influenced by what they might see as US "title inflation".
> 	I was once accused in federal court, where I was serving as an expert linguistic witness,
> of being a FRAUD because I used the title "Professor" when I was in FACT MERELY an untenured
> "Assistant Professor"! (as you can guess, the defence lawyer was trying to rattle me -- his emphasis)
> But the judge and jury seemed to accept my response that "Prof" was an appropriate form of address
> for everyone at or above my rank in a US university.
> 	Within an institution, it seems to me, not mentioning title differences (eg by calling
> everyone "Mr" "Ms" etc) is not simply a way to cultivate equality, but also a way to erase
> hierarchy from the public eye while allowing it to flourish in decision-making...
>
> 	-peter p-
>
> Peter L Patrick
> Dept of Language and Linguistics
> University of Essex
> patrickp at essex.ac.uk
>
>
>