I did this terrible thing. Back in pre-historic times I had a faculty position when I was ABD. I was doing research that was of interest to the media and was invited to appear on a TV show. They wanted to call me Dr. Scott but I had not yet received my Ph.D. Being ethical, I told them they could not call me Dr. Scott. They wanted to call me something authoritative so they suggested "professor" which I agreed to seeing as I was officially full-time on the faculty at the university. I did the show and it was somewhat popular. I later found out that a number of senior faculty at the university were quite unhappy with the title given to me by the TV network. It never led to a problem with promotion with those folks though. I would suggest that these things are trivial. The students call him professor. He is doing the job of professor. If someone at the grocery store asks him what he does, he will be a better communicator if he describes himself as a prof at so-and-so University rather than as an adjunct visiting instructor at so-and-so. There are places where the title is important and others where "professor" is truly appropriate even if not officially sanctioned. i would agree that he should not present himself as a professor at your insitution when searching for jobs, but his self-description as professor in other domains seems perfectly reasonable.
Bill Scott --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
