What advanced degree in Art is the equivalent of a PhD?

Question

I'm critiquing a short story set in a college in which every other character who teaches and has a PhD is addressed as Dr. or Professor. The poor Art guy is called "instructor." Assuming he's equally qualified in his field, what degree does he have? Is he Dr. Smith to the world and Professor Smith at the college, like his colleagues? Corollary question: If a professor tells others to call him Dr. Smith, "Dr." is abbreviated, right?

Answer 1

The others are partially right, but not 100% right for your purposes.

On the one hand, academic positions in the fine arts offer the full range of professor positions (Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor) to teaching faculty who do not have doctorate-level degrees. In most cases, an MFA is the terminal degree that is needed to teach at the college level, but there are also tenured faculty in the arts (even full professors) with much less academic credentials who earned their positions through impressive accomplishments in the art world. All of the students would refer to them as "my professor," but due to the less-formal atmosphere in the arts world, students would just address them as either Mr/Mrs/Ms Smith or by their first names.

On the other hand, there ARE PhDs in art subjects - typically Art History and Art Education, but also in programs with such titles as:
Media, Art & Text (Virginia Commonwealth University)
History and Theory of Art (University of Arizona)
Critical Studies and Artistic Practice (Texas Tech University)
Also, outside the U.S., there are PhDs for Fine Arts. Thus, those faculty members could rightfully be addressed as "Dr. Smith."

MEANWHILE, many college art programs are staffed by adjunct faculty members who, because they are not tenured, would simply be listed as "Instructor." They could have any level of education, even a PhD, but they would not be a professor. However, if they are Dr. Smith to the world, they would be Dr. Smith at the college. The students don't always know who is adjunct and who is a full-time faculty member, so they might very well get their terms mixed up. They might say "my professor" or "my instructor" and even "my teacher." In speaking to the teacher, they might call him Mr. Smith or, perhaps, Professor Smith (until they are corrected). But amongst his collegues, none of them would call each other Professor Smith or Instructor Smith.

Obviously, I don't know the context, but the term "Instructor" would only appear on the master schedule. If the story is going to sound authentic, the terms of address must be much less formal.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Phd Equivalent

Answer 3

PhD, the abbreviation for Philosophae Doctor, is a level of degree like bachelor or master. You can get a PhD in art history, fine art, art education (there may be others, those are what I know). So assuming he is equally qualified he would be Dr or Professor.

Answer 4

There is no PhD in Art. The terminal degree is an MFA, or Master of Fine Arts. "Dr." is a formal title, but anyone can be a professor. So the art character can be referred to as Professer ___ . And yes, Dr. is abbreviated.

Answer 5

The Art professor would also have a PhD. It's a degree given to those who study the sciences and humanities, and art is one category of the humanities.

How those with a doctorate have people address them is entirely a personal prefrences. Some of my teachers had us refer to them as Doctor, Professor, or some are just really informal and have you call them by their first name.

(In my experience, it's usually professors in english/arts who tend to be a bit more loose on formalities)

Answer 6

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