Title question

[jerseyjay]

On this and the previous Chronicle site, I have seen endless discussion about the use of honorifics and titles. In general I sort of find them silly, but I have one that has been gnawing at me.

I have been in correspondence with the provost's office at my university about some annoying but important matter (which involves filling out an infinite number of forms in order to get reimbursed for something). The correspondence has been with the provost's administrative assistant, although on occasion the provost and assistant provost have been on the email chain as well. The tone has been cordial, and I am genuinely grateful for the administrative assistant's help in navigating this bureaucratic maze.

At the start of the correspondence,  the administrative assistant began her email with "Dear Dr. Jay" and ended it with her full last name. I responded "Dear Ms. Lastname" and signed it "Dr. Jersey Jay," since that seemed to be the tone of the communication. She then responded with an email to "Dear Dr. Jay" and signed it with her first name. I replied with an email to "Dear Firstname" and signed it with my first name.

Since then (more than two weeks ago), her emails have consistently been addressed to "Dear Dr. Jay" and signed with her first name, and mine have addressed to her first name and signed with my first name.

To be honest, I am not particularly comfortable with her continuing to address me in a formal way and my addressing her in an informal way. To my ears (honed in Latin America) it seems to bespeak of the situation where somebody literally looks down upon a subordinate--even though, truth be known, the provost's administrative assistant probably has more power than a non-tenured professor. In the past I have had employers who insist on being addressed in the third-person while addressing subordinates in the second-person (which course is not possible in modern English). I am worried that I come off as arrogant, which is not my intention.

Am I making too much of this? Was I wrong to take her signing her email with her first name as in invitation to be more informal? I don't want to switch back to formality since that would be even more awkward, and I don't think it would be a good idea to insist she call me Jersey.

Upon rereading this, I am now sure I am spending too much time on this, but since the alternative is returning to grading, I thought I would post it anyway.

[arcturus]

Yes, you are probably spending too much time thinking about this. However, the easy solution is to send her an email (not part of the chain), asking how she would prefer to be addressed, as you understand the norms can be different in different circumstances. It may seem trivial, but, as you note, using the form of address preferred by the recipient is a form of respect. Acting in a respectful manner to the gate-keepers of the world is not only proper, it can yield real benefits.

[traductio]

It's entirely possible you're overthinking this, but I pay attention to these nuances, too. I've noticed them in my own university, although the problem is in some ways the inverse. I work in a bilingual French/English university (it's pretty easy to figure out which one, since there aren't many). My first language is English, but I've been speaking French for 25 years.

Emails at my university are masterpieces of code switching. (So are faculty meetings, or even just interactions between English and French profs.) When I write to my professor colleagues in French, we always use the informal "tu" form. When administrative assistants write to me, they always use the formal "vous" form, and I find myself writing back with the same formality. For them to use "vous" while I use "tu" feels to me like I'm patronizing or condescending toward them.

For me, this is all complicated by the fact that I learned French in France but live in Canada, where the social norms governing formality are very different. I never quite internalized them in France, but even if I had, they wouldn't do me much good here, where people are considerably less formal. (But not always!)

All this to say, your sensitivity to the issue isn't misplaced, even if you might be making a bigger deal out of it than the person you're writing to.

[Caracal]

By signing her emails with her first name, she's indicating that she prefers to be addressed that way. You're doing the same, by also signing with your first name, but she seems to be defaulting to a more formal address. In theory, of course, you could ask her to call you by your first name, but given the context, it doesn't really seem necessary. Somehow, at least to me, it would seem a bit weirder to say "oh, please Jersey is fine" in an email than it would in person.

[Hibush]

It has been my experience that the administrative staff in the Provost's office, who communicate on behalf of senior administrators, always address faculty as Professor Soandso. They are the only ones in the whole institution who do so. I take it as a sign of respect from the provost,  who holds a lot of power over me. Not as reinforcing a power or status differential between faculty and administrative staff.

[mamselle]

Oversight from the AA's/EA's boss (or in the old days, oversight from a Secretarial Pool exec) or others on a Cc: or Bcc: list may also be influencing this...their emails might be glanced at from time to time, checking for appropriate forms of address, etc.

And that reminds me, as an aside...you NEVER know who/if/when someone is being blind cc'd or receiving a forward after an exchange is sent...or gets (in USPS  snail-mail) a "disappearing" cover letter enclosed, for the eyes of the main addressee only (and to be "swallowed" or trashed) with commentary for others to see more generally.

I worked for someone who used those little techniques...

M.

[polly_mer]

And that reminds me, as an aside...you NEVER know who/if/when someone is being blind cc'd or receiving a forward after an exchange is sent...or gets (in USPS  snail-mail) a "disappearing" cover letter enclosed, for the eyes of the main addressee only (and to be "swallowed" or trashed) with commentary for others to see more generally.

I had a provost at one point who insisted on being BCCed on every email that in any way related to college business by everyone under his direct or one-step-removed control.  The brown stuff hit the fan one day when, on Thursday evening, the provost responded to a early morning Tuesday email in the middle of an email chain that had been going at more than 20 emails per day for most of a week.

The provost was way out of date and clearly hadn't even read the Monday emails.  The people involved vowed then and there to never again participate in an email discussion.  We used phones and visits for everything.

I don't know if the provost's intentions were to greatly reduce the written records at the institution, but that was the net effect.

[Ruralguy]

The least complicated answer is that you should communicate with people, especially bosses and their assistants, in the way they wish the communication to occur. So, if this person signs with just her first name and calls you Dr. Jay, then definitely address her by her first name.
You can sign any way you wish, but if she feels more comfortable with Dr. Jay, just sign Dr. Jay.  Changing things around is just going to make her uncomfortable. I wouldn't assume any kind of power imbalance or disrespect, etc.. That may be the case, but don't assume it and don't try to correct it at this level.

[pgher]

At my institution, pretty much all staff (including many of the "professionals," who are well-qualified in their respective fields but do not hold a PhD) address professors as Dr. So-and-so. I have tried and failed to get some of them to use my first name. I suspect the core reason is that at least SOME people DO care about the title. Few PhD holders are offended by being called Dr. Lastname, but enough are offended by being called Firstname that it's easiest to just always use the honorific.

[mamselle]

In an odd way, it can also become a term of endearment, somehow.

I once worked for a number of professors, with most of whom I used first names at their request, and I was comfortable with it.

There was one whom I dearly loved and enjoyed working with, and respected very greatly, that I could just not have called anything BUT "Doctor LastName." He was a true character, great sense of humor, but also very exigent--and I just couldn't say his first name. It felt wrong.

He's emeritus, retired to his home country, and I still refer to him that way when I run into other assistants I worked with in town, or to him, the couple times he's been back.

It's just like that, sometimes.

M.

[jerseyjay]

Thank you for everybody who responded. The responses all looked at this apparently simple question from a number of different perspectives, which I found both interesting and useful.

HiBush, I hadn't thought about what you said, but it seems that this might be the situation.

I suppose one thing that complicates this is that as opposed to some of the other administrative assistants whom I know at least somehow in person--and some more than others--the provost's assistant is somebody I rarely correspond with and have never met.

Thanks again for all the responses

[pgher]

I suppose one thing that complicates this is that as opposed to some of the other administrative assistants whom I know at least somehow in person--and some more than others--the provost's assistant is somebody I rarely correspond with and have never met.

I know of at least one administrative assistant who would call someone Dr. Lastname at work and Firstname at the church they both belonged to. That is, context matters.