Are university educators professionals? Whether or not university educators should be regarded as professionals is an important question that has an impact on a number of issues including job satisfaction, societal status and salary levels. This paper examines the need to classify this group as a profession and the consequences of that classification, or lack of it, by analysing the traditional views of the concept founded in the twentieth century and then exploring a new way to consider the question based on the realities of the twenty first century.