title use in academic settings

[Don Carroll]

Interesting discussion!  I'll add in one of my own experiences:

In my current place of employment (a Japanese university) the Japanese
professors generally refer to each other using LN+sensei, although one
teacher has said she prefers LN+san since we are not her
students.  However, with the few non-Japanese professors (a Hungarian, an
Irishman, an American woman and me) we tend to use first names, e.g. Have
you seen Michael today?"  A problem however emerges when I find myself in a
conversation involving both Japanese and non-Japanese members of staff.  I
could just adopt the Japanese system and refer to my non-Japanese
colleagues with LN+sensei however that feels very awkward in their
presence.  So what I usual end up doing is referring to Japanese colleagues
as LN+sensei and non-Japanese colleagues with FN's.  This, however, at
least to my ears makes it sound like I am being more intimate with my
non-Japanese colleagues and, therefore, seems like driving a wedge between
"nihonjin" and "gaijin no sensei" which is clearly undesirable.   A further
wrinkle in the situation is that most of the Japanese employees (professors
and staff) tend to refer to the American woman as "Wendy-sensei" which
seems completely inappropriate.  She is the only professor at the
university who is referred to in this way.  The likely reason is that she
is married to a Japanese man so technically her surname is Nakanishi and I
think that the Japanese members of staff are a little uncomfortable
referring to a non-Japanese with a Japanese name.

Here's another experience with address-terms from a non-academic environment:

2.  When I was in college I worked at Disneyland (Anaheim) as a
street-sweeper.  As you may have noticed, all Disney employees are required
to wear name tags with their first names.   Having one's first name on
public display can lead to some odd sensations.  For example, you'd hear
someone call your name, turn around, and find no one you knew there.  This
can be bewildering.  For this reason, many employees swap name tags (or
have collected several), for example, I had one that said Rick.  Of course
people who knew me addressed me as Don so if I heard someone addressing me
as Rick I knew this was a visitor to the park and could scan the scene
appropriately.  The first name name-tag rule also applied to even top
management when they are in the park.  Thus when a 65 year old senior
executive came up to me to tell me how he wanted something done, I was not
supposed to respond with "Yes, Sir." but rather address him by his first
name ("Sure thing, Bob.").  Obviously this was not easy for a 18 year-old kid.

Don Carroll
Dept. of Language and Culture
Shikoku Gakuin University

PS.  For those interested, I will shortly be starting a one year sabbatical
in the US (at UCLA) and anyone wishing to contact me should direct email to
dcarroll2 at mac.com