Posted on 02/17/2021 8:11:38 AM PST by karpov
I’m hoping Dr. Jill becomes the surgeon general, his wife. Joe Biden’s wife. She would never do it, but, yeah, she’s a hell of a doctor. She’s an amazing doctor,” proclaimed actress and co-host of The View Whoopi Goldberg last March.
After someone alerted Whoopi to the fact that “Dr. Jill” has a doctor of education (EdD) degree from the University of Delaware and not a medical degree, Goldberg apologized. “I was wrong about his wife. I was wrong, before you start texting and emailing,” she said.
Starting with Goldberg’s slip-up in March and ending with Joseph Epstein’s Wall Street Journal op-ed asking Biden to “drop the doc” in December, Jill Biden’s ubiquitous presence on the national stage during the 2020 presidential election revived long-standing debates about the use of the “Dr.” honorific and the academic degrees that underlie it.
What does the honorific mean in an era of mass credentialing and low academic standards?
In a syrupy profile published in the spring 2007 issue of Wilmington, Delaware lifestyle magazine Brandywine Signature, Jill Biden recounts her delight after returning home from defending her dissertation and finding two signs in the yard waiting for her: “Congratulations Dr. Jacobs-Biden” and “Dr. and Senator Biden Live Here.”
Everywhere the Bidens traveled, the titles went with them. Presumably, Senator Biden’s team considered Dr. Jill’s honorific to be so politically expedient that it became a prominent feature of every one of his campaigns, starting with his unsuccessful attempt to obtain the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. Until recently, only one writer dared to question their comically excessive use of the title.
In early 2009, Los Angeles Times opinion columnist Robin Abcarian noticed that campaign news releases and subsequent White House announcements persistently referred to her as “Dr. Jill Biden.”
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
She taught English at my crappy public High School when I was there.
Heck, I have a doctoral degree.
Maybe should start billing myself as Dr. Ben Lurkin.
Still not her fault. I’ve heard every person with a PHD called Doctor. It’s the academic world that started this a hundred years ago or more.
Technically you can.
Actually. I like it. Dr. Ben. Sounds awesome!!!! And you did the work so why not.
She doesn’t have a PhD. it’s an EdD
Sounds better than the proctologist... Dr Ben Dover.
Oops. Your right.
If there’s a formal setting involved or if the PhD person is acting in their professional capacity, then addressing such a person as ‘Dr.’ is appropriate, IMHO.
Outside of those conditions, it should be optional, and certainly the addressee shouldn’t be insisting upon the reference... that becomes self-serving and arrogant-sounding rather quickly.
Or the inventor of the mini-skirt.
Dr. Seymour Heine.
If her dissertation is any indication, she shouldn’t be teaching English. 🤣
There are doctoral degrees that are vital. Their holders do much to advance society. Examples of these would be a doctorate in medicine, dentistry, or engineering.
And then there are doctoral degrees that are nice (for lack of a better word). But they are not vital. Examples of these would be a doctorate in history or in French. They have value. But they are not vital.
And then their are doctoral degrees that are actually worse than useless. Number one on this list is a doctorate in education. There is no accepted body of knowledge in this field! So EdD holders just make up stuff as they go along.
Sorry for the rambling. But I spent 30 years teaching high school. And many of my classroom problems can be traced back to pronouncements from those EdD folks.
And now a disclaimer. I know some fine people with EdD degrees. They got it just to punch a ticket, and not to change the world. So not all EdD holders are frauds. But the degree itself is a fraud.
I once worked for a woma who had a PhD in Math from a top flight mathematics department. A great accomplishment one where someone should be proud. However she took the pride to an extreme. She legally changed her name from “First name” to “Dr First Name” so the “Dr” had to be on all official documents. All in all she wasn’t a bad person to work for, all you had to do was acknowledge her “self-proclaimed genuis”. It got to be routine, sort of like steppeing over or around an annoying obstacle to get work done. You just did it and got on with your day.
It was a public high school in Wilmington DE, so the bar was really low.
The golfer at the end of this clip has it right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqBPOWpOg0o
See post #16
Dr. Pepper Jill!
I have a Ph.D. And I actually treat patients. But I would never introduce myself or encourage others to refer to me as “doctor.” Some of my patients do, and I accept that, but that’s about it.
As for this ridiculous pretentious woman, she got by with a shabby disgrace of a dissertation that would never have been accepted by any legitimate doctoral committee anywhere, if she were not “Mrs.” Senator Joe Biden and in Delaware.
Maybe should start billing myself as Dr. Ben Lurkin.
As I inform locals, who want to be called Dr.,
“Fine, You have to call me Master, since I have a Master’s degree.”
So far none have taken me up re this challenge.
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