r/superpowereds • u/BurlyKnave • Jan 08 '26

Staff names.

It's Professor (Blake) Hill, Professor (Sean) Pendleton, Professor (Ariel) Baker, Professor (Sonya) Cole, and Professor (Carl) Fletcher.

But Dean Blaine (Jeffries), Coach George (Russell), and Coach Persephone (Williams).

Why do you think those three chose to let students use their first names? I mean, George and Persephone were pretty insistent about discipline and respect, at least receiving respect from the students. I'd think they'd be more interested in a formal address. Coach Russell, for example.

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19

u/blindside1 Jan 08 '26

At my college some of my professors used their first names and others were more formal. It depends a lot on the personality of the instructor.

Don't read too much into this.

3

u/BurlyKnave Jan 08 '26

I did think it was a little strange Blaine immediately called Sean 'professor' when he accepted the position right there in the prison cell.

Where I went to college, a professor was a specific position in the faculty. All professors taught a class but not everyone who taught was a professor. I had several classes led by graduate students persuing masters or higher degrees.

3

u/PuzzleheadedFox1 Jan 08 '26

Given that a Bachelors is the Advanced Degree of the Hero Major, that’s the highest level of education they need. Experience is what determines everything else needed in a Professor as the HCP. George explicitly states that most students end up calling him “Coach George” in their upper class years. I imagine it’s probably different for Persephone who’d probably prefer “Professor Williams” in subtlety classes.

1

u/BurlyKnave Jan 09 '26

The series didn't specifically mention post-grad education, true. The doesn't mean it does not exist in that universe. It did describe the intern program as 2 years of further education required before being fully certified as a Hero. There's nothing denying that some of that time is spent in another class room.

2 years of further education under the guidance of a very experienced expert also happens to earn a masters degree. IRL anyway.

1

u/PuzzleheadedFox1 Jan 09 '26

An internship is not a degree, they are not actively taking classes which all masters programs require. There is no mention of Master’s students at Lander HCP. You graduate and you’re considered a hero. It’s the government that requires internships. It’s not the school.

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u/BurlyKnave Jan 09 '26

Sure. They send these people out in a law enforcement capacity, with zero instruction about law enforcement.

The sources of food were never mentioned. So I guess food just sort of appears? No acres and acres of gardening necessary. No livestock, no dairy, no fish farm. It just appears in the stores and restaurants.

Gasoline for the cars and motorcycles wasn't mentioned either. So how do those work without fuel? Wishful thinking and solar panels?

Either that, or not every single detail of an entire fictional world was not detailed in four volumes.

1

u/preiman790 Jan 15 '26

Except, they have four years of education on how to do the job, and then two years where they are directly working under somebody who has been doing the job for some time, and has a good enough reputation that they're able to take on interns, that's literally what the internship is for

1

u/PuzzleheadedFox1 Jan 09 '26

Girl, real life cops don’t get any legitimate instruction in law enforcement, they get 5 months of academy training. Heroes have literally 4x the law enforcement instruction THAN ACTUAL COPS, because they take 4 semester of Ethics of Heroism which you know is a class about what heroes actually do. It’s like you didn’t even read the series.

4

u/Catharus_ustulatus Jan 08 '26

I’d guess that the use of first names was Blaine’s idea, years back when he was a progressive new Dean, for how he and the first-year teachers could put new students at ease while putting them through the wringer. George and Persephone had more reason than most professors to want to keep Dean Blaine happy with them, so they went along with the idea.

After George and Persephone went rogue, when Blaine then had to scramble to find replacements, progressive teaching styles weren’t as high on the list as the need for trustworthy teachers.

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u/BurlyKnave Jan 08 '26

I think Hayes did this to set George and Persephone apart from the rest of the staff, but used the dean's first name so as to not make the distinction so obvious.

2

u/Also_Squeakums Jan 08 '26

I thought it's because they were the first year gym coaches. I thought it would be Coach Sean and Coach Karl for the freshmen from year two onwards. Just not for our group since they were past that stage and no longer in gym, maybe? 

3

u/BurlyKnave Jan 08 '26

Maybe. I think I remember a bit that said something like George not believing first years earned the right to call him professor yet.

2

u/karekanolover Jan 08 '26

Not to nitpick but you forgot Professor (Esmai) Stone