Kwestions

[erastes]

Where’s Severus? He never misses coming in for his breakfast. *worries * ETA: Here he is the little monster.... Starving hungry and cute as a button...

Anyone watching Flashforward?  I’m loving it.  Of course I can see it has the capability to be a huge muddly disaster but so far I like it a lot. Very intriguing. Of course the paradoxes burn me, but I try not to think about them.

Research questions. If one is a professor, would one automatically have a doctorate? I don't think so, but am not sure.

If one is impotent, my protag has been damaged in the war and can’t get it up – can one still get pleasure from being touched and sucked?  I’m guessing yes, depending on the person, but would like to be sure.

While searching for a name for a character in my WIP, (as I realised he was Edward and can't be) I found this site and thought it was hilarious. When you do a search it gives you a table of the top ranked names. Then at the bottom it has to explain that number 1 is the most popular, number 2 is the 2nd most popular and so on. Do people really need this pointed out?

 

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Comments

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm loving FlashForward so far (and not just on account of Jack Davenport having the most distracting voice ever). It's at least starting to ask all sorts of interesting questions about fatality and predestination and hopefully it'll keep up. Clearly at some point, someone needs to cross it with Doctor Who and see where all the paradoxes lead. ;)

As for professorships, it depends on the setting. Today, mostly yes. I've run into professors in the US without doctorates, who started teaching in the 1950s-60s, but you won't get hired as a professor these days without a doctorate. It's also a terminology thing -- in the US, anybody in a full-time teaching position at a university is a professor. In the UK, I think it's almost exclusively doctorates because a professorship is an endowed position at most universities and you have to have a lot of seniority (or genius) to get one.

[mysid.livejournal.com]

Agreed--about the USA that is. I referred to all of my teachers at university as "professor". Most had doctorates, but a couple were still earning their doctorates. Technically, I think the ones who were still earning their doctorates were--officially and for pay scale purposes--not "professors" but "lecturers", but the students all called them "professors".

At some universities--although not at mine--graduate students can teach classes. We wouldn't call them "professor".

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're referred to as either 'part-time lecturers' or 'adjuncts', while the grad students are teaching assistants. I don't remember how I referred to lecturers. I think just by 'Dr So-and-so', and nobody ever corrected me.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Yes! Davenport AND Fiennes. It can't be me who wants to get rid of the woman and just have them too slugging it out...

Thank you - that's useful!

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Yes! Davenport AND Fiennes. It can't be me who wants to get rid of the woman and just have them too slugging it out...

I had that thought too...mmmmm. Though I am enjoying all the interlocking storylines too.

Re: Professor

[wildestranger.livejournal.com]

Do you mean generally someone who teaches at university (Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader, Professor) or specifically someone with the title of a Professor? It depends on your field, really - in English, yes, a PhD is the entry level requirement, but I know people in the social sciences who are lecturers without a PhD. Also, it varies from country to country. In the US everybody is a professor, as I understand it, whereas in the UK, that's the title you acquire after 10-20 years of work experience and several maor publications.

[shoeless-girl.livejournal.com]

Glad that Severus came in. Cats, eh?

In NZ I'm almost positive that all professors must have doctorates, as it's the top of the academic hierachy here. This is probably based off the British system, but don't quote me on that last bit.

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

In America, in some fields and schools you can get away with just an M.A. or an M.F.A., especially if the M.F.A. is the reasonably terminal degree in your field.

Adjuncts, for the record, are professors who teach maybe half a course-load and aren't so much on staff as hanging on by their fingernails.

They are all called "professor".

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Adjunct Prof = budget cheese-paring to pay qualified faculty less than grad students. It's a disgrace, and don't they realize they're reducing the value of their own product!? (why, yes, I'm married to someone who busted her ass for the PhD...)

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

Er, well, in our case, adjunct = house-saving extra cash this semester, because Daddy's having serious mental health issues and can't function in any other job, but then, I think we are dealing with two very different scenarios. Two-year colleges actually employ quite a few M.A. and M.F.A. holders, and some Ph.D. holders who hated the "proper" academic world.

Believe it or not, I'm planning on teaching at one myself in a few years.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know - the adjunct appointments can be really helpful as part-time jobs. But so many colleges are using them INSTEAD of hiring regular faculty that it's becoming quite an issue in many places.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

State-level colleges out here use full-time adjunct professors for covering vast majorities of their course loads. Adjuncts basically have to teach 4 classes each semester to get full health care coverage, for instance--and they get to cover a lot of those intro classes with 400-600 people in them.
So not joking.
Getting tenure is extremely difficult unless you bring onboard a ton of outside grant moneys (and yes, it's just that blunt.)

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I know. I worked in a big university during the Reagan years--education funding cuts, allowing the corporations to basically take over universities via grants. At this point, professors are expected to be grant-generators, not merely (usually said with a sneer) teachers The secondary "benefit" is that this system cuts down the number of lucky profs who get tenure, thereby eliminating the likelihood of those annoying tenured liberal-arts faculty who teach students to think instead of just produce and can't be gotten rid of easily.

It's no wonder the US is sliding further down the charts in student abilities in the basics. The educational system has been turned into a sweatshop.

[ammonite7.livejournal.com]

Here is another name site I find useful: http://www.top-100-baby-names-search.com/index.html

There are thousands of names here from all around the world, plus their meanings.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

When I worked in a science dept at Great Big University in Ohio, we had an Assistant prof who was an MA. She'd taken her degree there, been hired to teach the basic intro classes (massive numbers of students, it was required for pretty much all undergrads) and after about 10 years they moved her up from "Lecturer" to Assistant Prof. But for tenure-track in the US, except (as someone has said, for MFA and a few exceptions), a "Professor" -- FULL professor, not Assistant or Associate -- would be a Ph.D. (Assistant is entry-level on tenure track, Associate is tenure, Professor is probably going to be there for life.)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I suppose I wasn't clear enough, and that is leading to confusing answers - (for me) my guy is an academic at a scottish university - in the 1930's specialising in invertebrates - specially aquatic ones - so would be be a "Dr"? would be call him Dr or Professor in lay life?

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Ask Charlie.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Good thinking! Thank you!

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

ps - what's wrong with your dragon eggs? They only show 1 click!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

because I actually hatched them a few days ago but forgot to post them, so this is their first outing! :) I have two male autumn ones, which is all nice and friendly, but not Noah's Ark enough.

[penguinfaery.livejournal.com]

In art,a t least, you only need a Masters (And preferably some Gallery shows, or something else to show "Hey, look, I'm an artist!")

[angrboda]

If one is impotent, my protag has been damaged in the war and can’t get it up – can one still get pleasure from being touched and sucked? I’m guessing yes, depending on the person, but would like to be sure.

He might. In the same way that the clitoris responds to touch even if we're not wet at the time. If he can't get an erection, after all, it doesn't mean that he wouldn't want to. But for him to really get something out of it and find it pleasant enough to bother with it would probably require him to be able to avoid getting distracted and frustrated by being unable to get an erection, which I imagine would seriously spoil the fun.

But this is off the top of my head. I have no clue if I'm even remotely close to being correct.

[aperfectscar.livejournal.com]

All my lecturers were at least Doctors, some of them were more senior and were Professors - and all of the Professors had doctorates.