Reply #21: Give it a try [View All]

[OldLeftieLawyer]

I'm a born and bred Northerner who took up residence in Virginia more than thirty years ago. It was quite startling to be addressed as "ma'am" when I was a young woman, even by men far older than I was then.

It is a gentle, affectionate, respectful form of address, and it does wonders to facilitate communication among oddly disparate groups, believe me.

If you get a job in the South, and you ask your students to call you "Doctor," let me, as a fellow Ph.D. as well as one holding a J.D., assure you that you'll be acting fraudulently, because, to be completely true to the rules, we are not entitled to be called "Doctor," a form of address reserved exclusively for Doctors of Medicine (the title's on loan to dentists, but only as a courtesy and only in the US).

Anyone with a doctorate who demands to be called "Doctor" is showing ignorance of customs and traditions.

I guess being called "Professor" would work if you were a full professor, but it would distance you mightily from your students. If that's something you'd prefer, that would work here in the South, but unless you're a full professor - if you're simply an assistant professor or an associate professor - you'd also be employing that title in a not-at-all legitimate manner.

Give the "sir' and "ma'am" business a try, if you get a job. If you don't, well, you're off the hook, then, aren't you, "Doctor"?