<p>Saw this thread, "Does your college student address his/her professor by first name?" and wondered what the custom is at Tulane?</p>
<p>It is very much the personality and perogative of the professor that determines this. Tulane, like most schools, would I think expect the student to default to “Professor X”, and only after the prof says otherwise should they use first names. A doctorate in an academic field deserves the same consideration as a doctor of medicine. </p>
<p>Thanks. I wonder if some of it is based on the "southern"ness of Tulane.</p>
<p>I am staff at a university and I still feel it’s respectful to call the professors, who are basically my colleagues, Dr. or Professor. One professor who I do call by her first name as have become friends told me that students BETTER call her Dr., as she worked very hard for her Ph.D! Unless a professor tells a student t o call him/her otherwise, calling them Dr. is the respectful and proper thing to do. </p>
<p>I don’t think it is a southern school vs. other thing, Deb. I think it is, and should be, the defined practice everywhere. Having said that, I am sure it is possible that at some schools that are very small and/or have a reputation of being very liberal, calling profs by their first name MIGHT be the norm. But that would definitely be the exception. I have a hard time believing that the profs at Harvard or Michigan or WUSTL accept being called by their first names by students. </p>
<p>well, in the north and Colorado, we called our professors “Professor X.” But when I crossed the Mason-Dixon line, I was told that I would be called “Doctor X” and that I should insist that students call me that and not Professor or Mister because at southern schools it meant I didn’t have a PhD if I allowed students to call me Professor or Mister. Heck, still today I call my colleagues Doctor Y until they tell me otherwise.</p>
<p>Apparently the professionalization of the profession came later to southern schools, or so I was told, and there were more Misters or their gender equivalent teaching literature (as opposed to freshman comp–the usual purview of the Misters in the north) well into the last quarter of the 20thc. The last Mister teaching literature in the North that I had contact with was at a small LAC in 1975. He came up for tenure, a wonderful literature teacher, and they booted him out because he didn’t get the PhD completed. Nowadays, no one at a 4yr college English Dept gets hired for tenure track unless they have (or will soon have) a PhD or the position is for a creative writer.</p>
<p>A valid point for sure, jkeil. I get kind of used to schools where 98% or more have the highest degrees for their field of study, which is usually a Ph.D. or its equivalent in law, medicine, whatever. But you are right that Professor is not always the same as Doctor. When I was at Tulane, all my profs were Ph.D.'s and I called them Professor and Doctor interchangeably and none of them said anything to me to the contrary. The one time I had a grad student teach a few weeks of a course when the tenured prof was away (actually ill I think), I called him Mister. It would never have occurred to me to call him Professor even if he had been the full time instructor for the course. But I could see where that could have been appropriate in some situations for a non-Ph.D. instructor that had a “permanent” appointment.</p>
<p>I’m old school and would expect the Professor/Doctor approach. I was actually taken aback by the thread on the Parents Forum where many said the professors were called by their first names. Few actual college/university names were used so I was curious about Tulane. Thanks for the responses. </p>
<p>I hadn’t thought about this in years, but I got very close to several of my profs, mostly in chemistry naturally. Thanksgiving at their houses some years, several courses with them, long hours working in the lab which leads to many long conversations that get fairly personal, etc. Plus various more casual contacts at local restaurants, during sporting and cultural events, etc. Even after all that and being co-author of several published papers with one of them, it would never have occurred to me to call any of them by their first name until after I had graduated and established myself.</p>
<p>Nothing important to add, just some more musings.</p>
<p>It’s fun to reminisce. Thanks for sharing, FC </p>
<p>I had a really shy mentor in grad school. After I graduated, I asked him what I should call him now that I had a PhD. He stuttered and squirmed and finally admitted that no one had ever asked him that before and what did I mean. I said well should I call you by your first name or some nickname. He about fell over. He was only a dozen years older than me, and this was a New England grad school not a southern one. Had another prof who was only 3 years older than me, brilliant woman, and I wouldn’t have dreamed of calling her by her first name. However, in boulder where I was an undergrad the profs in the honors program had no problem with our using their first names outside of the classroom. And I had no problem with doing so. Weird, ain’t it, how the vast majority of us imbibe the cultural codes that’re in place wherever we go?</p>
<p>Yeah, those hippie schools. It figures. LOL.</p>
<p>I have never called any of my professors by their first name.</p>