What are faculty in the US calling students these days?

Post date: 2021-06-11 08:00:38

I teach college classes. My school typically expects the use of titles when students address faculty. My approach has always been to encourage informality as much as possible and use first names. Colleagues who have to struggle more for respect than me have suggested that doing so (in general) makes their lives a little bit harder. I'm happy to change. But, if you insist on being called "professor," how then do you refer to students? My plan is to use their full name with no title for everything. But, that also feels a bit weird. Any other suggestions?

"Mr. and "Ms. Surname" is obvious. But, then I have to guess their gender, which is tricky in person and much more challenging remotely. Students have the option to include pronouns in the roster. I include mine in many places. Many students leave it blank. Having to cross reference some other document adds a level of complexity to an email stream that I can barely keep up with as it is. Using search engines to guess the gender of students named in a language I don't speak isn't realistic. Asking someone how they want to be addressed when responding to a one sentence question about a homework deadline seems overwrought.

I know that one answer is to be very clear at the start of class. I try to do that. In the past, that has included an invitation to call me anything and usually a lame joke that calling me "asshole" might make me sad but won't change their grade. I'm no longer sure the last bit is a good idea.

I suspect students with non-obvious genders learn quickly they can safely correct me. I go out of my way to make that clear. I'm actually less worried about them than making other people in class feel bad. (I don't really call on people individually in class by name, which might change that calculation.) As a white, middle-aged guy in a sportcoat, demanding that an adult Black person call me "Dr." and then using their first name is not an option I'm comfortable with. Asking them to call me by my first name is the easy answer. But, asking students to only call the old white faculty by their first name is also a problem. Using their full name with no title works okay in text, but feels very strange in person.

I'm also happy to hear comments on the topic in general and my perception of it.

(Inspired by a recent question about kids.)

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