I dunno, Larry. In the super market if someone calls me "Mr", that passes
through my brain un-noticed. In a medical person's office, I _do_ notice
-- if this fellow, who went to a medical training school, wants to be
called "Dr", he and his office staff (and hospital nurses for that matter)
can bloody well call me "Dr" -- as my degree was a lot harder to get than
his/hers. however , I can well see that this is just my evil ego getting
in the way. On the other hand I get much better treatment if I do. Eg if
they put Dr on a prescription, boy does the pharmacist jump. This adds a
bit of humor to my day,
Teaching is another matter: I spent five years at a quaint little school
in SoJersey -- it had been only recently established --and by fairly
liberal people as that. There were at least two students on all faculty
committees (Can you picture two students on the P&T committee???). It was
the announced practice to call the professors by their first name. ( My
first day there in my first class I wrote my name on the board -- a little
waif yelled out "But what is your first name" Now that caught me flat footed)
My best students came to call me "professor"; the others called me "Jim" --
oh yes, except one -- a physics major, who ended up as the
valedictorian. He was the only one to call me "Mr". This bugged the
beejeebers out of me until I realized that he was previously a submariner
and he routinely called his officers "Mr" so for him it was a title of
respect.
The mediocre students called me "Jim", which in some cases carried the
force of "my good friend and helpful tutor" and in some cases carried the
force of "scum hireling teacher".
Now Larry teaches at a fairly rural college. In such a case I think tht it
would be helpful to the student's education to teach then a bit of
culture. After all many of his students have never done even an hour of HS
homework. The correct title for Larry is "professor" -- generally
considered a higher "rank" than "doctor". After some social contact and a
prior class or two, the students might call him "Prof Larry" or the
like. (In Larry's undergraduate days he had a professor that students with
great respect called "Doctor D" -- I wonder if he remembers)
But I do think that it is very helpful (I stop short of saying crucial) for
beginning students to gain some respect for the professor before becoming
his/her friend. It is important that the students value what the prof
says. A distressing percentage of students don't give much of a damn
about the material; they only want easy course credit and their
degree. There should not be a teacher/client relationship, but the
professor/protegee relationship should hold -- This might well soften as
the student improves. However, at some schools this never happens. <g>
The important question here is to be sure that he professor's ego doesn't
get in the way of the student's development -- at the same time to ignore
student assessments at the end of the term. <g>