Correct title for UK university lecturer w/o PhD?

Some of the lecturers on my master's degree course (library science) have PhD's, and so I normally address them as Dr. Soandso when writing them an email, etc.  But many of my lecturers do not have doctoral degrees, and so I don't know how to address them! Back in the States I would just say Professor Soandso, but I'm pretty sure that the title of Professor is only given to the most senior lecturers here in the UK.  So, is it just going to be Mr/Ms Soandso, or is there another title to use?

Yes, if they don't have a PhD, then they are conventionally addressed as "Mr" or "Ms". But in reality, you can get away with using their first name, last name as appellation. Plus, the academy is swiftly Americanizing, with the tendency to use first names very quickly. The old public school habit of addressing someone by their last name is practically obsolete (or, at least,  outside these networks).

"Professor" is only used for those who are the equivalent of "full professor", not lecturers, senior lecturers, or readers.

When in doubt, "dude" is always good

When in doubt, "dude" is always good

 

For me, it depends, definitely in an email, I use, Mr./Ms./Mrs./Miss depending on if I know the marrital status of a woman.  But, I asked some British individuals on my course how I was to refer to them when speaking to them on my first day of class.  They all said to just address them by their first name, when speaking to them.  That's the guideline I follow.   

Back in the States I would just say Professor Soandso, but I'm pretty sure that the title of Professor is only given to the most senior lecturers here in the UK. 

FYI, in the U.S., the title 'professor' is also reserved only for a full professor.  As a Ph.D. (ABD), I always secretly loved it when my students would call me professor, but I also did not deserve the title, so I corrected them (sadly) and told them to use Ms. instead of Professor if referring to me in a conversation, or when speaking to me directly, just call me by my first name.

FYI, in the U.S., the title 'professor' is also reserved only for a full professor.  As a Ph.D. (ABD), I always secretly loved it when my students would call me professor, but I also did not deserve the title, so I corrected them (sadly) and told them to use Ms. instead of Professor if referring to me in a conversation, or when speaking to me directly, just call me by my first name.

When you say "full" professor, does that include Assistant and Associate Professors (pre-tenure)?  In undergrad I always referred to all of my instructors whose job title included the word "professor" as Professor Soandso (or, actually usually I used Dr. Soandso instead, but I had one class in particular that was taught by a full, tenured professor who did not have a doctorate, so she was always "Professor.")  If I was being taught by an adjunct or a graduate student, I used Mr/Ms.

Thanks for the info Tina and Persephone...once I get to know my lecturers better I'm pretty sure I'd be able to call a few of them by first names, but until then I'm going to stick with Mr or Ms.

In the US, the hierarchy nomenclature goes:

Adjunct Professor (usually part-time, a grad student or a Ph.D.)
Assistant Professor (usually full-time, on a tenure track, but not always)
Associate Professor (usually tenured, but not always - some Ivies have non-tenured associates)
[full] Professor
named Professor (as in the blahdy-blady professor of blahdy blah)

hence, anyone who teaches in the US could be called a professor - it roughly means someone who is teaching a university class/

In England for the pre-1992 universities (the newer ones have different titles), the hierarchy is usually:

junior lecturer (sometimes divided between lecturer a and lecturer b)
senior lecturer
reader
Professsor

everyone below a professor is called "Dr." if they have a PhD. A professor is often considered as having a "chair" while the person running a department is called "head of department". In the US, a "chair" mainly refers to someone gaining a "named" professorship or becoming the head of the department.

The UK doesn't have a tenure system, so staff are on probation for a few years, but getting on and off probation doesn't correlate to the academic hierarchy. So a junior lecturer who gets off probation is still a junior lecturer.

Some universities are shifting to an American system, like Warwick recently did, making probationary staff "assistant professors" and post-probationary ones "associate professors"

But here's the bottom line (or as they'd say in the UK - at the end of the day - ), don' tget too worked up about what to call people. Pretty much anyone who isn't an a**hole, will tell you to call them by their first name nowadays. Even most "Professors" under the age of 50 also find it absurd to be called "professor".

It's funny that you say it's becoming more like the American system, because while all my lecturers/professors have been called by their first names in the UK (even the Dr.s), I never once did that in the US!  Okay, I take that back - only once did I use a first name with a prof at home, but it was because a) he didn't have his PhD, and b) he specifically asked for us to call him by his first name.  Every other prof at my uni was Dr. Surname (but I also went to a small, private school where 98% of the staff has a PhD).

I feel really strange calling respected academics and people with doctoral degrees, countless books, and extremely esteemed in their field by their first name!  However, everyone else in the class doesn't seem to have a problem, so I guess I'll carry on.  Just doesn't seem respectful enough - if I worked my butt off to get a PhD, I'd darn well want people to call me Dr.!

When in doubt, "dude" is always good

I find "homie" works well for me.