What is your grudge? Joseph Epstein, you are jealous of Dr. Jill Biden’s educational attainment! Oh, how you want us to share the secret handshake. But it is beyond your grasp. Pun intended here.
While Martin Luther King, Jr. and Henry Kissinger are called "doctor," so are media personalities Dr. Ruth and Dr. Laura, and all four have PhD degrees. Are they phonies in your book? What about Dr. Who, Dr. Seuss, and Dr. Dre, who we know are called "doctor" just because. It is obvious to me that you are picking on Dr. Jill Biden because she is a woman and you are clearly envious.
The U.S. Census found that only 2% of adult Americans have doctoral degrees. As you stated, you taught for thirty years at Northwestern without a doctoral degree or an advanced degree, only a baccalaureate, which provides two years of a core curriculum and two in a specialized field or major.
From my years as a professor and mentor, I learned that the “Dr. Wannabess” of the world, who are bullies and know-it-alls, drop out of advanced degree programs because they won’t commit to years of hard work, critique, and formative feedback. I doubt that you have ever seen Bloom’s Taxonomy. It is a pyramid with the baccalaureate degree at the bottom level, as undergraduates must learn new knowledge and regurgitate it with testing. A master’s degree encompasses the next two levels, comprehension and application, typically for people who desire positions in higher management. Finally, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are at the top and that represents a doctoral degree, something that Dr. Biden and I have in common. We did not regurgitate knowledge via testing, we both wrote our way out and it was the hardest and most rewarding achievement of my life.
As an academic, I want to explain further why only 2% of Americans have doctoral degrees: Because the other 98% do not need it, do not want it, or do not have the persistence and grit it takes to earn it. It is backbreaking work and a journey of self-discovery requiring academic humility and self-reflection. Epstein, you will never march down the aisle teary-eyed to Pomp and Circumstance wearing your regalia, the six-sided tam, tassel, hood, and awesome robe with sleeve chevrons!
You suggested Biden’s Ed.D. as “doctoral degree, lite,” because hers is focused on practical problems and solutions in education, not practicing medicine. You’re narrow-minded, Mr. Epstein. You are probably one of those who identify my Ph.D. as an abbreviation for “Piled Higher and Deeper.” Dr. Biden and I have what you never will: Refined critical thinking skills. When you, Mr. Epstein, hear hoofbeats in the distance, you assume it is horses. Dr. Biden and I know IT COULD BE ZEBRAS!
Jill Biden should be addressed officially as Dr. Biden because she is Dr. Biden. When she is spoken of and spoken to in her role as the first lady, she is Dr. Biden just as her husband is Mr. President or President Biden. In personal settings and with good friends, they are just Joe and Jill or Mom and Dad.
For my readers who wish to review his WSJ op-ed, I have posted the link below.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-there-a-doctor-in-the-white-house-not-if-you-need-an-m-d-11607727380
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