Introduction
Under the tenure systems adopted as internal policy by many universities and colleges, especially in the United States and Canada, tenure is associated with more senior job titles such as Professor and Associate Professor. A junior professor will not be promoted to such a tenured position without meeting the goals of the institution, often demonstrating a strong record of published research, grant funding, academic visibility, teaching and administrative service, with emphasis different across institutions.
The Purpose of Academic Tenure
Academic tenure is primarily intended to guarantee the right to academic freedom: it protects teachers and researchers when they dissent from prevailing opinion, openly disagree with authorities of any sort, or spend time on unfashionable topics. Thus academic tenure is similar to the lifetime tenure that protects some judges from external pressure. Without job security, the scholarly community as a whole might favor "safe" lines of inquiry. The intent of tenure is to allow original ideas to be more likely to arise, by giving scholars the intellectual autonomy to investigate the problems and solutions about which they are most passionate, and to report their honest conclusions.
In North American universities and colleges, the tenure track has long been a defining feature of employment. However, it is becoming less than universal. Positions that carry tenure, or the opportunity to attain tenure, have grown more slowly than non-tenure-track positions, leading to a large "academic underclass".For example, most U.S. universities currently supplement the work of tenured professors with the services of non-tenured adjunct professors, academics who teach classes for lower wages and fewer employment benefits under relatively short-term contracts.
Tenured and Tenure-Track Positions
These full-time faculty members engage in both undergraduate and graduate teaching, mentoring, research, and service. Only faculty in these positions are eligible for tenure.
· Assistant professor: An introductory level professor. A position generally taken after receiving a PhD and completing a post-doctoral fellowship. After four to eight years, assistant professors may be either tenured or dismissed from the university.
· Associate professor: A mid-level, usually tenured, professor.
· Professor (sometimes referred to as "full professor"): a senior, tenured professor.
· Distinguished professor or endowed chair honorary position in which a full professor's salary may be increased, perhaps by being tied to an endowment derived from the university, private individuals, firms, or foundations.
Non-Tenure-Track Positions
Individuals in these positions typically focus on teaching undergraduate courses, do not engage in research (except in the case of "research professors"), may or may not have administrative or service roles, and sometimes are eligible for job security. They may still use the prenominal title "professor" and be described by the common-noun "professor," whether or not the position title contains the term. Likewise, the term "instructor" is very generic and can be applied to any teacher, or it can be a specific title (tenure or tenure-track) depending upon how an institution chooses to use the term.
· Teaching assistant (TA), graduate teaching assistant (GTA), course assistant (CA), teaching fellow (TF), or graduate student instructor (GSI): Positions typically held by graduate students. TAs play a supportive role involving grading, review sessions, and labs. Teaching fellows (and at some universities, TAs or GSIs) teach entire courses.
· Adjunct instructor / adjunct professor / adjunct lecturer Part-time, non-salaried, non-tenure track faculty members who are paid for each class they teach. This position tends to involve professionals employed elsewhere full-time or retired professionals, and does not always require a completed PhD.
· Lecturer: A full-time or part-time position at a university that does not involve tenure or formal research obligations (although sometimes they choose to perform research), but can often involve administrative service roles. This position does not necessarily require a doctoral degree and usually involves a focus on undergraduate and/or introductory courses. In some colleges the term Senior Lecturer is awarded to highly qualified or accomplished lecturers. A convention some schools have begun to use is the title "teaching professor," with or without ranks, to clarify that these are in fact true faculty members who simply do not have research obligations.
· Collegiate professor (with ranks): A recent title with many different names dependent upon rank, these instructors hold the same rank as their tenure-track counterparts; however, they are not tenured. The term may also apply to one who is studying to, working towards or attempting to attain a Professoral degree. If they are already a Professor they often have a practical emphasis and go by such terminology as clinical professors, studio professors (in architecture and design) or industry professors (in fields such as engineering and technology). A similar recent title that has come into use is "professor of practice. "
· Visiting professor (with ranks): (a) A temporary assistant/associate/full professor position (see above), e.g. to cover the teaching load of a faculty member on sabbatical. (b) A professor on leave who is invited to serve as a member of the faculty of another college or university for a limited period of time, often an academic year.
· Research professor: A position that usually carries only research duties with no obligation for teaching. Research professors usually have no salary commitment from their institution and must secure their salary from external funding sources such as grants and contracts. (These are often known as "soft money" positions. ) Although research professor positions usually are not eligible to be awarded tenure, their ranks parallel those of tenure-track positions (like clinical professors); i.e., research assistant professor, research associate professor, and (full) research professor.
Hollins Unversity
A four-year private institution of higher education located on a 475-acre (1.92 km2) campus on the border of Roanoke and Botetourt counties in the U.S. state of Virginia. Founded in 1842 as Valley Union Seminary in the historical settlement of Botetourt Springs, it is one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States.