The Profes'sorry'ate!

If what was reported in the social media sometime ago was true, an MLA once asked a Minister whether Professorship category existed in Colleges. The reply from the Education Minister was that it doesn't, even though, they say, the response was from the minister who designated himself as Professor!

The tendency to brand oneself as professor among College faculty members is on the rise for while. Many of those who have even recently joined the educational service as faculty prefix a Prof. before their names. Or, that is what I feel when I go through some of the reports in the media regarding College activities. As a result almost all of the college faculty are entitled to be designated Professors that way!

Some relate this with seniority. If you have been in service for a while, have been teaching long, then you can stick the label on you. Or you can allow others to stick it on you. It grows on you and you take a new feel about who you are! A Professor Babu enables you to be something a Mr. Babu can't !

I wonder if this has got something to do with the Doctorate run in vogue now among the young academicians, though partly prompted by the UGC directives. Because those who have PhD will put Dr. there and those who don't (not all but some, but a rising population of 'some'!), feel naked as nothing covers their front. Feeling academically exposed, they look for cover and conclude that only a 'Prof' can do the job! And they Prof. themselves. So if you don’t have a Dr. you must park a Prof. where the Dr. should have been. A Prof. Somebody if you are not a Dr. Somebody.

What beats me is this: are we unaware that it amounts to a lie? How can one assume that he can simply self-distinguish with a title (!) she or he doesn't possess? Will we allow it, if someone who doesn't have a Doctorate degree fixes Dr. before her name? Or any such acronym that represents a degree or designation? Then why this? Moreover where does that sense of self insufficiency spring from? Where does the sense of dignity come from when you cook up who you are? ! Are the teaching lot so vulnerable? As teachers will we feel it funny if a student prefixes a title she doesn't possess! Similarly the said urge to don the garb of a Professor when you are not one amounts to a similar act.

More importantly, the tendency is common not on the name boards of the faculty members, not on the boards hung above the doors, but in the media reports, on Programme charts, brochures and flyers. When such printed literature goes out, this urge to Prof. comes to the fore. Newspapers present very young Professors which even the very experienced ones can't be. We can’t dismiss the tendency as remains of a legacy, simply following the traditions of yore when very senior, scholarly ones were professors. Members of academia are otherwise well aware of the changes around. They can't pretend that they thought there were still professors around in Colleges (UGC and occasionally University, even very recently, have been talking of such a possibility, though yet to be realized!). In a world where getting a Doctorate is relatively easier than becoming a Professor, we need to restrain ourselves of the urge to Prof. ourselves before the public! 

You are who you are, not, who you are not!