Thank you Dr. Biden

As a young professor, I would walk into the classroom, settle in, greet students as they walked into class and begin by saying, “Hi. My name is JoAnne,” and then continue to introduce the course.

In the years after receiving my Ed.D. degree, I was hesitant to use the title, Dr. I would make self- effacing jokes about how it was only useful for getting airline tickets or dinner reservations. I subscribed to the reigning presumption that the only true doctors were medical and Ph.D. scientists; whose research focus was in the “hard sciences.” I felt that using the designation Dr. was like wearing a piece of clothing ill-tailored to my dimensions.

In the classroom, once I finished my opening remarks, the first question students asked was, “What should we call you?”

“JoAnne is fine.”

“OK, Dr. Jones.”

I was always Dr. Jones or Professor Jones. Always. I taught adults for 35 years, and was, and continue to be referred to, as Dr. Jones.

The students in my classes typically came from experiences that are referred to by language that signaled “watch for deficits”: disadvantaged, underprivileged, tracked, not college material, educationally challenged, financially marginalized, needy, indigent. They arrived in college with limited confidence in their academic abilities and often limited…