docent ˈdō-sᵊnt , dō(t)-ˈsent noun
1. a teacher at some universities
2. a guide who leads others on a tour
_________
The word docent has appeared in 32 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on March 19 in “In Praise of Pioneer Women and Rocket Scientists” by Sebastian Modak:
We were in the city’s massive U.S. Space and Rocket Center, a museum chronicling the work of the nearby NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, where every major development in spacecraft technology took place for decades.
Mr. Moore now volunteers here as a NASA emeritus Docent at the Center. Clad in a white lab coat, he talks to visitors under the shadow of a Saturn V rocket he helped build. He was reassigned to the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center when it was established in 1958. His job was to build a rocket to get people into space, instead of one that could reach Moscow in a single flight.
_________
