The Endeavor

How the term "Professor" for my night college students honors the institution of teaching and learning

NOTE: Now that some important matters in my personal life have been attended to, I’m going to wade slowly back into the water of the Ground Experience Substack page with short pieces. The longer works I have published here will be returned to when time allows.

First day teaching the night course at a community college started off with technical issues, but once we got rolling, it was awesome. Wide age range (19-55), gender, ethnic, and other forms of diversity. Rich and interesting group.

After a discussion we had about the differences between the words all of them voted unanimously to call me "Professor Lawrence" or "Professor" for reasons ranging from coming from a Spanish-speaking culture that respects teachers, to wanting a "hierarchy", to needing an air of "authority".

At the beginning of the discussion, I explained to them that I insist on being called Professor in my full-time college teaching role because I wanted that particular cohort of students to feel that they "made it." Many of those students are between 17 and 22, and most are the first of their families to go to college. So the "Professor" label is not for my own sense of importance, but rather the goal to instill a sense of importance in the students themselves.

I also shared with my night school college students that in my undergraduate years, I was a theatre arts student and that we all called our professors by their first names. But, I explained to them that we were like a family and a true community of artists who involved one another in highly emotional artistic projects and creative visions that required a kind of personal intimacy.

Still, they all voted to call me Professor. I summarized for them that I felt that in this moment the term Professor was not about me being important or them needing to feel important (most were older; all were full time workers seeking a college degree)... but that we were respecting the legacy of education itself, the lineage of thinkers, writers, architects, artisans, and philosophers who have worked for thousands of years to build institutions like the one we all found ourselves in this evening.

Though my style tends to be democratic, non-authoritarian, somewhat informal, and full of polite humor, I acknowledged that when I enter the classroom, I am always "carrying the flame." They all seemed to immediately understand this.

What a cool, cool class this was. Totally unexpected. So, now the word "Professor" carries a deeper meaning for me.

It's not about me or them.

It's about The Endeavor.