Professor titles switched out to "Subject Matter Expert" in Admin Meetings

[Aster]

I have noticed within the past year a new meeting dynamic between the professors and the administration.

During jointly-run meetings between faculty and administrators, a faculty member is no longer being referred to as "professor" or "faculty" in the third-person. Instead, a faculty member is referred to as a "subject matter expert".

This behavior started out only in senior meetings with administrators, but it has been slowly creeping into mid-level meetings with staff. And when it is used, it often bears little relevance to the issue being discussed.

I understand the original use of the term.

But when I'm in a meeting and this title is being applied to me and other professors in a non-technical matter (e.g., screening staff applications on a hiring committee, serving on a disciplinary board), this is how it feels.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sme

"Subject matter expert (frequently used in business, originally heard at AT&T). Original meaning was the person who was knowledgably about the subject, has now become a somewhat pejorative term for someone who just knows the facts but has no power to make a decision. (Sometimes confused with/pronounced like shmo)."

Has anyone else experienced this? Did it make you uncomfortable or feel shut out?

[arcturus]

Interesting. I have only encountered "subject matter expert" in circumstances where it was a positive description, i.e., the other participants in the meetings were lawyer-types who knew little about the subject, but a lot about the law. I can see how it could become a pejorative, though, if it is applied in inappropriate contexts.

[onthefringe]

I have only experienced it in the context of research misconduct cases, where the review panel (usually faculty with admin and legal support members) can call additional faculty for help in understanding the expectations of a specific research area that none of them are experts on. When I've served in this capacity it means I get quoted in the final report and can review it for accuracy, but don't write the report or weigh in on the final outcome.

It seems very appropriate in that context, but not so in some of the contexts Aster discusses

[Puget]

I've also only encountered it in valid uses. e.g., several of us from psych and ed advised admissions  as subject matter experts-- we didn't make decisions for them, our role was to help them with improving the reliability and validity of their evaluation process. This seems like a useful distinction from having a faculty governance role.

[jerseyjay]

In academia I have not actually heard the term at all, excerpt perhaps in passing and then in the most literal sense. (That is, I am historian, that makes me an expert in history.)

I worked for a while in standardized test development. The company I worked for (one you would all know but which I will not name) was divided into several divisions. There was, essentially a business/operations division that was in charge of obtaining clients, organizing the logistics of testing and marking, etc. There was a test development division, which was split between the people who wrote the exams (which included me), who were subject experts, all of whom with graduate training and most with teaching and research experience, and people who were experts in tests themselves (usually with PhDs in statistics or psychometrics) who knew nothing about the subject of a test but could tell you if the test was statistically performing the way it was supposed to work.

Subject matter experts had to sign off on most changes to the tests (because, well, you need a historian to agree to make a change to a history exam) but in the scheme of things were not very well respected. The business people did not care about the subject of the exam, dealing with many different exams and clients, and the testing people thought subject experts tended to get lost in the trees and miss the forest when designing questions and exams.

Both business people and testing people could have a meeting with English experts in the morning, then Spanish experts, then History experts, than Physics experts, than Economics, then Art Historians, and they tended to get bored of long theoretical discussions about how to interpret questions, while for us subject experts, these discussions were often the only thing about the job that was interesting. Hence subject matter expert was a double-edged sword.

[lightning]

erosion of governance

[Hibush]

Are members of the other group in the meeting referred to as "subject matter ignoramus", or do you use some other new term to match the trend?

[Wahoo Redux]

erosion of governance

We've seen some indication that admin are trying to limit the number of actual professors on campus (buyouts; elimination of departments; not filling empty TT lines and increasingly hiring non-TT lecturers and adjuncts), and the theory is that admin is trying to pare down the number of people eligible for the union, which is of course based on job title.  Have not used the "subject matter expert" yet.

[AvidReader]

I believe it's gaining popularity in education circles. I've seen an accrediting agency distinguish between "Subject Matter Experts" and "Course Designers," as though people with experience in a subject are not competent to design a course in that subject.

AR

[dlehman]

I think your comment (and a few of the others) reveals a general skepticism about how faculty are treated - one which I share but I think is misplaced here.  Rather than revealing that faculty are not capable of designing a course, I view the distinction as course designers do not have expertise in the subject matter.  As much as I worry about de-professionalization of faculty, I actually don't mind the use of SME.  I've done a lot of expert witnessing and that is often the term that is used.  I find it somewhat refreshing to actually see our expertise acknowledged for a change.  As I said, I have as much skepticism as anyone about how the treatment of faculty is evolving, but this is one area I don't think fits into that worry.

[marshwiggle]

I believe it's gaining popularity in education circles. I've seen an accrediting agency distinguish between "Subject Matter Experts" and "Course Designers," as though people with experience in a subject are not competent to design a course in that subject.

AR

In my experience, "course designers" are often connected to online courses, with the idea that faculty members who may have taught an in-person course for years aren't necessarily familiar with the LMS and have never had anything asynchronous, etc. There are certainly faculty I've seen who seem to have no clue about how to adapt to the online environment, as was clearly demonstrated during Covid.

[apl68]

I believe it's gaining popularity in education circles. I've seen an accrediting agency distinguish between "Subject Matter Experts" and "Course Designers," as though people with experience in a subject are not competent to design a course in that subject.

AR

In my experience, "course designers" are often connected to online courses, with the idea that faculty members who may have taught an in-person course for years aren't necessarily familiar with the LMS and have never had anything asynchronous, etc. There are certainly faculty I've seen who seem to have no clue about how to adapt to the online environment, as was clearly demonstrated during Covid.

I suppose that could be a useful distinction--the software expert who makes the course work online, and the "subject matter expert" who knows what the course is actually supposed to be about.  If those two are enabled and willing to work together as a team, it ought to result in a well-designed course.