I mean, what else are they going to use?
I've always called all my lecturers* by their first names. Without exception. It was a bit odd as a first year undergrad, admittedly. But my current dissertation supervisor is younger than me. If I'd called her 'Dr --' instead of 'Anita', it would have made her laugh rather a lot.
So, against all conventions, we always called her "Sister Doctor Hoctor"
Hee. Did she have a sense of humour about it?
*in the UK, we use this term used for university teachers generally. You can have tenure-track lecturers or fixed-term (adjunct) lecturers, etc.
Oh yeah, we would have adjunct professors, etc., which is different from being the Smith Professor of Blah Blah.
I had a philosophy prof. who insisted on being called by his first name, Fred. He told his students that if they had a problem addressing their instructors by first names they should call him, "Mr. Fred".
they should call him, "Mr. Fred".
A little too close to "Mr. Ed" for my comfort.
Laga - Heh. Nice of him to give them that much comfort space. I've taught in community colleges, and I'm always addressed by my first name, even among younger students. If my students find it odd, they get to call me 'Miss [surname]', and I in return get to call them 'Mr [surname]'. With eighteen-year-olds, that tends to last for exactly one class...
I have no issue with first name use, but, yeah, it seems to weird students out a bit, especially, I think, as they're going to be teachers, and that would freak them out a lot.
I was a double major. In the theatre department, all of my profs were first name. In the english department it was all Doctor or Professor. It depends on the culture.
At my college all the professors were called "Professor." And they did, in fact, profess.
Every professor at my college had a doctorate, though.
In most traditional academic fields you need a Ph.d. to become a professor, but there is a tradition in some applied fields (nursing, architecture, education, business) where experienced professionals without a doctorate serve in the role, particularly if it is not a tenure track appointment. That tradition is in decline (driven in part by rating systems like US News that use % of faculty with doctoral degree as a criterion), but a good architect who is a charismatic teacher still could be appointed with a title of professor.
The lecturer-professor thing differs across cultures. In Britain and Brit-influenced universities world-wide an American assistant or associate professor is a lecturer, and only full professors are professors. As an associate professor I spent a year in Europe on a Fullbright, and was startled to find that I was no longer a "real" professor. I felt like I had been demoted.
