Can We Call You Al?

I don't know about you but I'm tired of this professor crap. Day in, day out, we have to call our professors by their title and last name. It's just so passe. It's time that we start addressing our professors by who they are, not what they are; that means, yes, by their first names.

I make my proposal not just because it's so out of touch with the rest of society to continue calling people by their titles, but because there is a very compelling pragmatic reason for doing this, and it's based on proven military practice. Here's what I mean.

When I was a little kid, my history teachers at the local Hebrew day school often spun grand tales about the fighting effectiveness of the Israeli Defense Forces. We were told how the IDF were the most feared military unit in the Middle East, and that person for person, the Israeli military could kick anyone's tuchus from here to the World to Come.

Well, like any trigger-happy 10 year-old, I sought out more information about the IDF, the world's most shitkicking minyan. I subscribed to Jane's Defense Weekly. I wanted to find out what it was about the IDF's organizational structure that made them so darn good.

It was only after visiting my cousins in Israel, who were serving in the IDF at the time, that I discovered what, to use some social sciences jargon, the intervening variable was.

While on weekend leave, my cousin Shlomi's commander dropped by for coffee, without either the battle fatigues or imposing manner one would expect from a platoon leader. After he left I asked Shlomi who this friendly guy was. Shlomi replied, "That's Dudu (a common Hebrew nickname for guys named David). He's a close friend and he's also my boss."

Wait a second, I said incredulously, you call your military commander by his first name?

"Sure. All soldiers call their leaders by their first names."

Needless to say, I was dumbfounded by his casual response. I verified this information recently with Alon Peled, a graduate student in the government department who is studying Israeli military structure and policy, and he said that after basic training, it's not unusual at all for reserves and enlisted men to call their superiors by their first name, even four or five ranks above.

The IDF's effectiveness, I decided, had nothing whatsoever to do with state-of-the-art technology, years of extensive training or the special sauce that the army uses in their falafel recipes; it was predicated on their unique egalitarian spirit.

Harvard faculty, not especially known for hanging out with undergraduates, could learn a lesson from the Israeli army. Because of their preeminence, our professors bear a special burden in leading the fight against the Forces of Ignorance and Dogma (FID). No longer can Harvard profs continue to coast by on the reputation, resources and riches of Harvard.

Like the IDF, Harvard must learn to avoid stiff formality at all costs. The best way for Harvard's community to become more effective in crushing FID once and for all is, to quote Ross Perot, "join hands together and just lick this problem."

FID can only be destroyed by reclaiming the moral high ground of egalitarianism. Precisely because professors are more experienced in this battle, they should lead their students in the same way that Israeli commanders lead their troops (specific policies notwithstanding).

Regardless of their title and length of tenure, all professors should introduce themselves by their first names and be addressed by their students in this egalitarian way.

FID is a tough adversary and it won't be an easy transition to shift to this military-like organization. Already, Thompson Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. has declared his opposition to such a call to first names: "We need more elitism in our society, not more egalitarianism," Mansfield said. "A professor is not your friend," he added.

Well, maybe Mansfield's not, but others have indicated their desire to join my crusade. Porter University Professor Helen H. Vendler stated that "[students calling her by her first name] would not bother me at all." Besides, she added, "Leadership must be acknowledged, not claimed, unless you're Hitler."

Noting that the custom of calling professors by their first names is prevalent in Bennington College, she remarked that the present formal convention of using titles is just an "arbitrary social custom."

I called up Lawrence Buell, the dean for undergraduate education, to get his read on the situation. He said he did not advocate "a topdown edict" that would dictate policy on personal address at Harvard from The Crimson pages, University Hall or the department chairs. He emphasized that, "much more significant than the level of address is the level of humanity in the teaching process."

But, he did pledge his "fundamental support" to anything that would facilitate "the joint partnership in inquiry" between students and instructors. Overall, Dean Buell added, it would have to be left to the instructor to decide and take the initiative.

I'm not so sure we should settle for this compromise. A call to first names will not only draw us together more closely, it will destroy the hard-line patriarchy in place at Harvard.

Ironically, many of us spend huge amounts of time studying thinkers who were iconoclasts, people who broke down social barriers and shook things up. If Western civilization is rooted in what the Greeks had to teach us, maybe we should learn this final lesson.

Plato and Socrates went by their first name. Often they taught little study groups under the shade of the tree. And perhaps, most indicative of their informality, they didn't even wear pants.

C'mon Harvard. It's time for this nonsense to go. Drop your titles, if not your shorts.

Dan Markel '95, a Crimson editor, is dying to just walk up to the University's president and call him Neil.