Comments on: A Guide to Modern Manners, by Mistress Historiann

By: Best books of 2009: No girl writers allowed! : Historiann : History and sexual politics, 1492 to the present

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:36:40 +0000

[...] I for one am totally relieved that there wasn’t any dreary political correctness or Soviet-era feminism involved in this year’s prizes. Isn’t “postfeminism” awesome? [...]

By: Ruth

Ruth — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:07:45 +0000

Dance, I would suggest addressing a group by treating them all the same. If I were sending an e-mail to a group of my peers, and I had never met some of them, I would call them all Professor.

If I write to a student and other professors, I would tend to use all first names, unless it was an official communication, in which I would say “Dear Ms. Student and Dr. Advisor . . . “

By: dance

dance — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:38:24 +0000

My department is split in their preferences on this. Several times I’ve had a student write to hir entire committee: “Dear Ruth, Jane, Professor X, and Professor Y,” and I’ve had to sit hir down for a little talk about context.

Wait, Ruth, sit *me* down. How does one handle that, as a student? (Also, as a professor, how do I handle addressing an email sent to student and student’s other professors?)

Julia: (We need to come up with a formal title for people with Master’s degrees…)

I would consider that all people teaching a college class are entitled to “professor”, even if they are not doctor/phd.

By the way—I do put my first name on my syllabus. But since my students can’t reliably pronounce it, I am de facto protected from mis-addressment in person. Not in email, though. But I have “call me Professor Laughter, please” on my online syllabus, and will remind students via email when necessary.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:51:52 +0000

Shaz–I think that’s probably the best way to go. I wonder if a lot of our grad students feel more comfortable using our first names because a surprising number of them were our undergrads, too, which I’m sure is not the case at your institution. (Then again, it might be harder for students to call us by first names if they’ve been calling us “Professor” or “Dr.” for three years…)

By: Shaz

Shaz — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:16:09 +0000

Re: The Frog Princess & Historiann– For me, this insitence on last name has been the case with lots of people of color, not just African American students: Latino/a, South American internationals, Asian Americans, Asian internationals, etc. I don’t have a good solution, other than directly and individually addressing students of color who seem to be reluctant, to encourage them to use my first name, explicitly. That way, I’m not expecting students to pick up on some implicit community mores, when everyone may not have equal access to them.

By: Comrade PhysioProf

Comrade PhysioProf — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:11:16 +0000

I tell everyone to call me by my first name, but that is surely driven in large part by race, gender, and class privilege.

I think we should just call everyone “holmes”.

By: The Rebel Lettriste

The Rebel Lettriste — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:26:50 +0000

To be more clear, I don’t mind “ma’am,” at all. I don’t mind “miss” very much either, especially if it’s coming from African American students, who are aiming for respect when they use it.

What bugs me is “Mrs.” And I didn’t grow up with any kind of titles (Quakers don’t use them), and so it’s still awkward to demand “Dr. Lettriste.” But I earned that title all on my own. “Mrs.” just connotes my mom.

By: Julia

Julia — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:45:16 +0000

I would never DREAM of calling a professor Mr, Mrs, Ms, or Miss… I have a *teacher* right now who does not have a PhD, so she wants us to call her “Ms LastName” or use her first name. It is really difficult for me to get used to, and every time I write her an email I feel awkward. (We need to come up with a formal title for people with Master’s degrees…)

By: Historiann

Historiann — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:32:19 +0000

It’s interesting that graduate students whom we invite to call us by our first names resist, and undergraduates who don’t know any better (or who are just jerks, occasionally) are comfortable with the presumption. I really appreciate shaz’s and thefrogprincess’s comments–I haven’t yet noticed an ethnic/racial divide in how the grad students address me, so I wonder if this is an African American thing (rather than a Latin@ thing–we have Latin@s but no African American grad students currently.)

By: FrauTech

FrauTech — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:15:44 +0000

At my university all the professors are referred to as “Professor.” Very often without the last name. I think it’s something to do with large class sizes and students frequently not remembering what their professor’s name is. So Professor is just a convenient way to refer to the lecturer, who may or may not be a PhD (though almost always is).

Ruth I never thought about it being your mother-in-law’s name, that’s so funny. I took my husband’s name, but as his Mom is remarried I’m the only Mrs. Tech around. I wonder if it would have influenced my decision differently if that were not the case.