No, I do not alter the TITLE of my positions on my resume and would not do so. However, if someone were to ask what my position in Jamaica was, where I held a lectureship, I would tell them that I was an assistant professor (and I actually did state that in my cover letter when I was on the job market--if I do not, American schools would not understand that my duties were as a full-time member of the faculty and included community service, research, and committee work). At the same time, when I speak to colleagues in Jamaica, even though I hold the title of Assistant Professor, I refer to myself as a Lecturer because that is their equivalent terminology.

As I understand it, Obama did not alter his resume to claim the title of Professor, he said that he was a professor at the University of Chicago in some campaign literature. In so doing, he wasn't representing himself as being a tenure-track professor for the purposes of employment, he was simply trying to describe what he did to a general populace (many of whom don't understand the subtle differences between lecturer and professor anyway). Obama is not lying when he does this: there *is* a difference between claiming a title and DESCRIBING what one does.

Obama WAS NOT professor.....

Well-researched, well-documented investigative report…

http://www.stop-obama.org/?p=476

“Professor” Obama, Rascist Media, and Obama Supporters in Rut” 4/1/08 by Juanita Gonzales

"While America’s Clean Black darling has stopped calling himself a Professor, the first thing you get when you Google “Professor” and “Obama” are just these sources, with their unanimous verdicts that Obama was indeed a Professor. This is the work of the University of Chicago’s appallingly mendacious statement,
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/media/index.html

whose results have now permeated the media.
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/03/professor_obama.html

Michelle Obama- Associate Dean http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/960606/obama.shtml
since 1996 and VP community and external Affairs

http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/2005/20050509-obama.html
at University Hospital since 2005.

University Trustee - Thomas Pritzker http://trustees.uchicago.edu/
Sister is Obama’s Finance Chair. http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/01/sweet_blog_scoop_penny_pritzke.html

http://www.suntimes.com/news/sweet/867973,CST-NWS-sweet30.article
No 'Professor' Obama at U. of C. by Lynn Sweet, Sun-Times Columnist , 3/30/08

I N V E S T I G A T E
http://www.stop-obama.org/?page_id=8

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/03/24/barack-i-didnt-know-obama/#more-1919

HRC has turned out to be a BIG disappointment. Her below-the-belt campaign tactics are so Bush-like. No wonder the two families (Bush/Clinton) are so close.

Unfortunately, some of her supporters believe that repeating, rehashing, regurgitating, remixing lies about candidate Obama will somehow make HRC attractive to more voters. Instead, it simply shows how out of touch HRC is and how desperate some of her supporters are.

No way can we suffer an extension of the Bush presidency by electing Clinton or McCain . . . it would be just too cruel. The citizens of the grand, good ole USA deserve so much better than what Clinton brings to the table.

Thank goodness we have an alternative in candidate Obama.

God Bless the USA

Obviously, the University of Chicago -- which is listed (along with nuclear plant giant Exelon) as one of Obama's top ten contributors -- has a tremendous vested interest in putting this guy in the White House. Parsing what they wrote, Obama's official title remains Senior Lecturer, and not Professor, Associate Professor, or even Assistant Professor. Were Obama to put on his resume that his title at University of Chicago is "Professor", that would be fraud. Presenting himself as such in his candidacy is much the same thing.

Really, folks, can't you put this one to rest? FactCheck.org followed the story beyond the University of Chicago's press release. Here's what they found: "Furthermore, Obama was not merely an "instructor" as Phil Singer stated. As a "senior lecturer," Obama was in good company: The six other faculty members with the title include the associate dean of the law school and Judge Richard Posner, who is widely considered to be one of the nation's top legal theorists."
Read it yourself at http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/was_barack_obama_really_a_constitutional_law.html.
Nailing it down, the story contains a link to the U. of Chicago Law School's online catalog, where you'll find that, yes, the six senior lecturers are listed under the same category heading with the tenure-track professors.
Bottom line on this one: Barack was truthful; the Clinton campaign thought they'd caught him in a lie. True, they were quoting a year-old news story that also got it wrong - but they could have fact-checked it, same as I just did.

The fundamental problem is the lack of understanding about how things work at the UCLS (University of Chicago Law School).

Point 1: He doesn't have a Ph.D. Yeah most law professors don't they have J.D.s. They generally focus more on this than say a Ph.D. in Social Science.

Point 2: What the statement was trying to tell those intelligent enough to read is that at the UCLS Senior Lecturers are considered professors. We understand this doesn't happen everywhere but it does at numerous institutions so YES he was a professor at UCLS. Over on Politico one of his ex-students even posted their full email address explaining that yeah all of the students, faculty and dean considered him and called him professor. So please take your complain up with the UCLS, which by the way is an extremely right-wing school that would have no love for a Democratic candidate. In fact Obama was one of the few "liberal" professors they hired.

What a big lie. The same school said just last year that Obama was a "instructor."

Obama must have cut a big check.

Oh please - if Rev. Wright's sermons had been anything like that for 20 years, they media wouldn't be playing the same two 30-second clips over and over again.

Blog, 4/9/07; Chicago Sun-Times, 8/8/04

Sorry, but I can't get excited about a dopey comment a campaign staffer said a year ago or four years ago or whatever it was. Snipergate and this kind of trivia is nothing compared with Golden Boy's 20 years of attendance at a church where--oddly for a former president of the Harvard Law Review--he seems to have missed the point of the pastor's ravings.

NEWS FLASH FROM HOWARD WOLFSON:

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, it was recently discovered, has fathered two black children.

For more details, contact the Clinton campaign.

He functioned as a professor, but he was not a professor. He was offered a professorship, but he declined. So, what is your problem again with the Hillary camp statement? The statement of the U. says clearly that Obama was a politician, who taught a few classes as a lecturer first (adjunct professor) and the last few years as a senior lecturer. Obama was not a - tenured or otherwise - full time professor.

The following are facts about academic rank in the US (note that this discussion does not necessarily apply OUTSIDE the US):

(1) The professorate consists of BOTH tenured and tenure-track individuals at instititutions of higher learning in the United States. In general, the untenured are Assistant Professors (but they are still professors). The term Professor (capitalized) is a title, sometimes referred to as "Full Professor". However, all of those at the Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Full Professor (or simply Professor) levels are professors (lowercase);

(2) At many institutions, those who are teaching part-time may be labeled as "Instructor", "Lecturer", or "Adjunct Professor". Also, those who are teaching full-time but in a temporary position may be labeled as "Visiting Professor". I have held all of these titles at one time or another. To students and the general populace, these are all "professors" (lowercase), especially if they hold the highest academic degree in their respective discipline (as Obama does with his law degree, a Juris Doctorate).

I currently hold the title of Assistant Professor of Economics at an institution in the US and I refer to myself as having the occupation of "professor", a designation which has been accepted in various courts of law where I have testified as an expert witness. Anyone who argues that I require tenure to call myself that really doesn't know what they are talking about.

This is pathetically reminiscent of the 'elementary school scandal' that the Clinton gang cooked up in an attempt to scuttle Senator Obama's candidacy. Don't they know how desperate and petty they look? Every day Hill, Bill and the gang squeeze out these debunk-able plops of poop, designed to somehow diminish Obama and inflate Clinton, they actually manage to diminish Hill's own candidacy. I used to feel sorry for them---now I am just pissed that they are wasting our time and tearing down the party.

From Lynn Sweet at theSun Times:
******

Obama did NOT "hold the title" of a University of Chicago law school professor.

WASHINGTON—The University of Chicago released a statement on Thursday saying Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) “served as a professor” in the law school—but that is a title Obama, who taught courses there part-time, never held, a spokesman for the school confirmed on Friday.

“He did not hold the title of professor of law,” said Marsha Ferziger Nagorsky, an Assistant Dean for Communications and Lecturer in Law at the school, on East 60th St. in Chicago.
-*****

Read the whole thing at:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/03/sweet_obama_did_hold_the_title.html

Hillary should be so smart.