[ih] PhD

[Bill Ricker]

On Sun, Jan 3, 2021, 12:24 Dan Lynch via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> In an earlier post someone was posting about Gordon Bell and his wife
> Gwen. It correctly attributed a PhD degree to Gwen and incorrectly to
> Gordon. Gordon had a Masters degree.


I'll accept the correction as a friendly amendment since Gordon's Hon.D.Eng
(WPI'93) and Hon. D.Sc.T. (CMU'10) came years after the events recounted,
so yes,  he would have been Professor but not Doctor then. ;-)
(Somewhat amused yet saddened that CMU wasn't first in line!)

(Referring to them as Dr & Dr Bell in the ^present tense^ is not wrong,
despite only one of the several doctorates being 'earned' in the
traditional sense of a defensed thesis.)

Of course he gave out PhDs while at CMU. The early days of computer science
> found a number of brilliant people leading the field without advanced
> academic degrees of their own. Frothy times!
>
> I, myself, taught computer science without ever having taken a course in
> it. Early times. 60s.
>

Unclear if either of the subjects I taught in '80s and x90s (Unix for
Secretaries,  and C++ and OOD for C programmers) or any of the courses I
took were 'Computer Science' per se (as opposed to practical software
development),  but yes I too taught with neither a terminal degree nor even
an advanced degree. In this world of adjunctification, this likely
continues in night divisions despite surfeit of Ph.D.s, as adjunct
lecturers remain even cheaper than the much abused itinerant adjunct
professors!

Not all fields are over-producing doctorates in this new century.  In
another field,  a family friend received promotion to tenure-track in the
School of Journalism with the understanding that he would use a sabbatical
to write a D.Jo. thesis-worthy book before the School was nextdue for
accreditation review. Which kinda skewed the incentives for his reader &
viva committee. (OTOH his books are both well researched and well written,
so any objections would have been obviously self-serving ^more of a comment
than question^.)