Titles in Teaching

For the last three summers I have taught an online course for a seminary as an "adjunct professor."  This winter I will have the honor of teaching again, but this time as an adjunct for a university.  They call their adjuncts "contracted faculty" (as opposed to tenured faculty).  When I teach in the summer I identify myself by my ecclesiastical title "Pastor," in part, because I am teaching pastors-to-be, and partly because I have a hard time thinking of myself as a professor in the full sense of that word.  This winter, however, since I am teaching university students online I am unsure of what to be called.

One site says that adjuncts may use the title "professor" as a courtesy, but properly speaking they are not actually part of the faculty.  Since I do not have an earned doctorate I obviously cannot use that title.  Calling myself "Pastor," while accurate, may not be quite what I need at the university level since I am not operating in that vocation.  Calling me "Rev. Engebretson" also feels awkward, since that title is not normally one of address, but a label, or sorts, for correspondence, etc.

Doing a general search of this question online, however, has not offered much help.  Interestingly, adjunct instructors make up a sizeable portion of teachers on the college and university level.  It feels, for me, a bit like my position as a volunteer firefighter.  I am not full-time, yet I have trained to be a firefighter, so I use this title, which to the average onlooker makes me equal with the career path responder.  I'm not sure what they think of that, but I suspect in some quarters, there is a bit of tension there. 

On the web page for Concordia University-Portand they write that "adjunct professors are defined as professors who are not on the tenure track." Nevertheless, some still say that adjuncts, if they lack of a doctorate, should be addressed by a title such as "Mr." or "Mrs."  Once again, I'm back at "Rev.," although such a title does not function the same way as "Mr." does, so perhaps I'd be better to go back to where I started: "Pastor."

There is a tendency, I have read, for some students to address their adjuncts by first names.  That, I am not comfortable with.  Not that I'm hung up on titles.  I simply believe that students should recognize the instructor by their position.  They are not friends or acquaintances.  It's a student-teacher relationship. A title is needed.

Well, I'm not sure I'm any closer to an answer on this one. I think the issue is a bit ambiguous, and since undergraduates will hardly understand the intricacies of what I have just written, I may just settle for professor.  But just with the students. I would not dare to refer to myself beyond that sphere.  Beyond that I am in my other vocations: chaplain, pastor, or secretary (as in district secretary -which is another discussion for another time....)


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