Salutation formatting

Brad May

We are planning to eliminate Mr. and Mrs for all correspondence now in RE. So no more Mr. snd Mrs. John Smith; just John Smith and Mary Smith. Question 1 is, are most people out there doing this? Question 2 is how do you handle a title if there is one involved? Example: Two alums are married, the wife is a Doctor. Do we list salutation as "John Smith and Dr. Mary Smith"? (Assuming the alum prefers to see their titles on correspondence)

Thank you.

Brad

Faith Murray

We still use titles. That being said, you have options that would make the transition more friendly.


For married couples with the same last name, a simple "John and Mary Smith" avoids the split names that implies two unmarried relatives living in the same residence.


Also, to maintain consistency in avoiding all titles, consider suffixes as replacements for professional titles. For example, a doctor under regular title traditions is normally addressed as "Dr. John Doolittle" or as "Mr. John Doolittle, MD". In dropping titles, you could opt for the latter usage to denote their position: "John Smith and Mary Smith, MD".

Sandra Ross

great idea using suffixes! We are working on this project during the summer - bookmarking all the great ideas.

Genevieve Maddison

We just transitioned to removing titles, and it went very smoothly! Our SOP has been that if a title is explicitly requested, we ask the constituent exactly what they'd like to see and don't assume. (Examples, like Mr. and Mrs. John Smith or Dr. and Mrs. Smith).


I will tell you that we have not had any example with a married couple where one requested a title back and the other didn't. If I had to speculate, I would say that most couples either share the same views regarding titles or one feels less strongly than the other and goes along with the spouse's decision. I honestly don't think you'll have too many times it happens, either, but I'd definitely be interested in hearing your results after your transition!

Angela Tuttle

Subscribing! We are currently looking at this, and only adding when the donor tells us. We are still working on the policy.

Jeannie Goings

Agree, agree, agree!!! The honorifics are getting more and more complicated. Faith Murray‍ makes an excellent point about adding PhD and MD as post nominal letters to capture degree.

Stacy Evans

If you work for a University, I'm pretty sure they want all correspondence to reflect their titles.