Professor: A Courtesy Title

[Toyin Falola]

To throw sand into the gari of ongoing arguments, “professor” can also be used as a courtesy title. For instance, were I to retire today and not appointed as a Professor Emeritus, calling me a professor is just a courtesy. I am no longer a professor! It is not meant to be a lifetime title. I become Mr. Falola or Dr. Falola in retirement, but it is not illegal to call me Professor Falola, although, technically, I am no longer a professor.

 

Depending on systems, you can be a Professor in one system and be appointed an Associate Professor in another system. Or you can be an Associate in one system and be appointed a Professor in another. Pantami is qualified to be a Professor of Practice, if he wants that title, and in public we delete “of practice” and we all drink our beer with fish pepper soup.

 

In Nigeria today, they have added “Distinguished” to that title. Most people are no longer Professors but Distinguished Professor (DG)!

 

Anyone obsessed with titles should call himself God, Allah or Jah. These are ageless titles: no promotion, no zip code, no address, no sabbatical. An Oba cannot be made an Oba. God has no promotion or demotion, no CV. Just call yourself a God, and let us all enjoy our peace.

 

Or

 

You can mobilize labor to build a tomb and pyramid for yourself: put all your publications, awards, citations into the tomb, and I can nominate contractors on mummification to complete the process.

 

TF

[Moses Ochonu]

Exactly, Oga Falola. Pantami can indeed be appointed Professor of Practice or even a visiting professor without running afoul of the FG’s prohibition of dual employment and without calling into question his qualifications. That’s what what Toyin Adepoju doesn’t get and has stubbornly refused to get. He is conflating Professor of practice with tenured academic professorship in his imported examples.

The small problem with appointing Pantami Professor of Practice ( not sure there’s provision for that in Nigerian public university system) or visiting Professor is that he has to do some teaching and supervision. He can’t just sit in Abuja as a politician and bear the title.

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 21, 2022, at 6:12 AM, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:



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[Toyin Falola]

Moses:

Until Farooq told me, I thought his appointment was in a private university. If his intention is to be called a professor, his options are many. He can walk from his office to Aspire University of Technology, Nile University of Nigeria, etc. He will be appointed without any controversy. Every Monday morning, he can walk there to teach a class at 7 AM and get back to his office by 9.

 

In any case, let us all move on…Ukraine is the main issue, and any attempt to humiliate Putin will lead to a major war with long-term consequences for Ukraine. If their politicians don’t know that the country is ethnically divided and accept, for now, the status of a client state, something is wrong with their brains. When a deer lives near a lion, you don’t depend on the tiger to protect you!

TF

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[Nimi Wariboko]

Let me add a wrinkle to what Professor Falola has just said. Professorship as a title ultimately belongs to the university that bestowed it on the scholar. Under certain circumstances a university can remove the title from a person and the person cannot use the title,  and thus he is effectively demoted.

There are regulations that say if a professor has been found to engage in moral turpitude he can be stripped of his title. In 2013 a professor in a US university was charged with sleeping with his female student. The way he conducted himself with the student was considered beyond the pale and rose to the level of moral turpitude. The university stripped him of his title and promotions and reduced him to Dr., the title he had when he was employed as an assistant professor. The university giveth and taketh. The university also fired him. 

The university argued that its professorships are based on its recognition system and it can remove them when their holders behave very badly. Note here that professorships are not merely based on scholarship but also on some moral standard, however that is defined by the university. (Check the books of your university to find out what behavior amounts to moral turpitude.)

The university warned the said professor not to put the title of professor in his CV. It stated that it would inform any future employer that his highest rank was assistant professor. The last time I heard of the guy he had travelled to Europe to seek a job there. 

The point is that professorships belong to universities not to individuals. When you retire and your university do not strip you of the title you can append it to your name if it suits you. But it is ultimately not yours as your personal name.  It is a work title just like being called a manager or CEO. Being called a professor outside your university or after retirement is mere courtesy by your colleagues. 

So the bottom line is that Professor Falola is only a professor at University of Texas at Austin and holds that title as its pleasure. He is not a professor at University of Ibadan. This judgement has nothing to do with his quality of work. Same applies to me at Boston University. If we left our universities and other institutions want to recognize our work and appoint us as professors that is the prerogative of our would-be employers. There is a saying in Kalabari (Niger Delta): a chief in one compound is not a chief in another. He cannot preside over the division and allotment of ancestral land in another compound. In fact, in US universities your professorship is limited to your department. You are a “chief” in your department and not in another. So in places like Harvard they have college and university professors in addition to the regular professors. College or universities professors have bigger domains. 

Universities can also strip you of your earned doctoral degrees. Note I did not say honorary degrees. In all these, there are stringent procedures they have to follow in order to do remove titles. My present university came close to stripping the earned doctoral degree of a famous American decades after he earned that it. Decades after he graduated and had died the university found out that he plagiarized portions of his dissertation. 

Nimi Wariboko 

On Feb 21, 2022, at 7:12 AM, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:



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[Toyin Falola]

Hopefully, our friends and colleagues in Nigeria are reading this thread.

And I should add that the social status of a professor is dependent on locale.

A professor at the University of Ibadan carries more prestige than me in the city of Austin where the techies are the elite. Here in Austin, a good plumber carries more relevance than me to householders! There are professors in the US who drive Uber to augment their pay.

And add India where many professors do not even have social status equivalent to someone in the University of Lagos.

 

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Nimi Wariboko <nimi...@msn.com>
Date: Monday, February 21, 2022 at 7:37 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Professor: A Courtesy Title

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[Owojecho Omoha]

A remarkable revelation by Wariboko: "a chief in one compound is not a chief in another" gives us the differing conditions on appointments in different universities in Nigeria. And I think Ochonu sums it all. Teaching for some period of time and PhD supervision are required. Pantami may have failed to achieve both at FUTO, being a serving minister. So much is contained in the ASUU report just published.

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[Owojecho Omoha]

Locale, Prof, locale.

We are reading the thread on professorship and the honour attached. In Nigeria, professorship is nearly symbolic of a university.

It seems Farouq Kparogi has that vision in his rejection of FUTO and Pantami as a recipient. Uproot the name of the giver, and the receiver becomes inconsequential.

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