Addressing Professors

[apop]

I'm in my first year of my MA and have been told by my professors to call them by their first names. However, I like the 'familiarity gap' that exists with calling them 'Dr. whatever'. I do not know if this is because I am a female and want to keep these relationships strictly professional (it is no secret that there has been some foul-play in the department in the past). But I am there to obtain my degree and grow academically, nothing more.

That being said, I do not want to offend anyone. Any advice here?

Thanks!

[robot_hamster]

I don't think calling them "Dr. Whatever" is going to offend them.

[apop]

For some reason it seems to throw them which is not my intent either.

[robot_hamster]

Honestly, if they say it's okay to call them by their first name then call them by their first name. I understand the weirdness factor. I went to a very traditional school for undergrad. You didn't call a professor by their first name. It was always Dr. ______. If you had a good relationship with them, then you could just call them by their last name and leave off the Dr. So it was weird coming to such a relaxed environment for grad school. So are you just weirded out by calling them by their first name because it feels too personal? I guess I never thought about such a thing making you feel vulnerable. Now that I do think about it, I guess I could see that. But do you really think your professor is going to hit on you? Or is it just a rumor that you heard?

Edited October 17, 2011 by robot_hamster

[fuzzylogician]

You should call your professors by their first name if that's what they asked you to do. I understand the feeling of awkwardness but look at it from the professors' point of view. Graduate students are considered by many to be colleagues in training whereas there are other reasons for maintaining distance from undergraduates. You are making it difficult for your professors to develop a healthy working relationship with you by keeping an unneeded distance; it's difficult to have a free exchange of ideas when one person treats the other with such deference that they may not freely speak their mind. Plus, (in my opinion) it's strange in a continuous working relationship to keep the formalities for too long. As for fear of other kinds of relationships...well, those have very little to do with first-name basis and a lot more to do with the department's culture and policy towards such relationships. I am sure that there are other ways to convey that you are not interested in anything other than a professional relationship, or else I fear that calling someone Prof. X will not solve the problem anyway.

Edited October 17, 2011 by fuzzylogician

[Behavioral]

If you can't call them by their first name now, when do you actually expect to be able to? After graduating? After you're done with a post-doc? After you've gained a professor position? After you're tenured? If your professor has enough confidence in you to tell you to call them by their first name, then do it. You may never consider yourself a peer to them, but that doesn't mean the inverse is true.

[robot_hamster]

Maybe it would help to think of it this way. At my other job, I have a boss. I don't call my boss Ms. ______, I call her by her first name. If you can't think of professors as colleagues, then try thinking of them as bosses.

[far_to_go]

In my program, as in many others, the norm is for grad students to call professors by their first names.

I think robot_hamster's boss analogy works well here. Just because you're on a first-name basis, it doesn't have to mean that the relationship is informal or unprofessional.

If you are uncomfortable with calling profs by their first names, it should be fairly easy to avoid calling them anything (in directly addressing them). For instance, you could start e-mails with just "Hello" rather "Hello [name]". My guess is that you'll get more comfortable with it in time.

[Sigaba]

FWIW, the following thread contains posts that offer additional views on this topic. <<

[runonsentence]

As does My feelings echo those of fuzzylogician's: it gets to a point where it's weird to continue using titles, especially if they introduce themselves by first name.

Edited October 23, 2011 by runonsentence

[Lyra Belacqua]

I'm in a situation that sort of relates to this thread (just not the ``inappropriate relationships'' bit). All the professors in my department prefer grad students to call them by their first names (which is obvious whenever they introduce themselves, sign emails, or refer to each other). This is my first semester here, so there are a few that I haven't personally met (people who are on leave or are in a subfield unrelated to mine). Today, one of my professors told me that I should email someone to ask her about something; she's one of the professors currently on leave, so I haven't met her. Older grad students and professors refer to her in conversation by her first name (and the person who told me to get in touch with her today said "You should email Jane", not "Professor Doe").

But it feels so awkward to address her by her first name in this email, when I haven't even met her yet. Salutations are the most difficult part of emails for me as it is (yeah, I'm awkward like that); earlier this semester, I was sort of nervous about using my professors' first names in email salutations even though I knew it was definitely what they preferred. I'm also not a big user of vocatives in person -- I don't know why -- so this arises mainly with email.

When I was in undergrad, "Hello" was indeed my salutation of choice for these situations, but I feel like it's too "obvious" like that, and it's not really going to cut it anymore (especially for someone I'm likely to be working with a lot in the future).

[Eigen]

I personally prefer to use the more professional approach with someone I haven't met, even if indications are that they're fairly relaxed about such things.

[robot_hamster]

I think in this situation, it is fine to be formal when addressing the person in the email. Then see how they sign the email when they respond back and then go from there.

[nehs]

Call them however they want to be called. In my Dept, we call them "professor xxx" or just "professor". No one uses only the forst name.

[singlecell]

I think in this situation, it is fine to be formal when addressing the person in the email. Then see how they sign the email when they respond back and then go from there.

that's what I always do... Write the formal title in the first email, then 99% of the time they sign it with their first name. Then I write back, "Thanks, Firstname, etc..." to make the transition easier when I have to say it out loud.