Professors in the United States commonly occupy any of several positions of teaching and research within a college or university. In the U.S., the word "professor" is often used to refer to anyone who teaches at a college or university level at any academic rank. This usage differs from the predominant usage of the word professor in other countries, where the unqualified word "professor" only refers to "full professors" (i.e., the highest rank among regular faculty), nor is it generally used in the United States for secondary education teachers. Other tenure-track faculty positions include assistant professor (entry level) and associate professor (mid-level). Other teaching-focused positions that use the term "professor" include Clinical Professor, Professor of Practice, and Teaching Professor (specific roles and status vary widely among institutions, but usually do not involve tenure). Most faculty with titles of "Lecturer" and "Instructor" in the U.S. are not eligible for tenure, though they are still often referred to as "professors" in a general sense and as a courtesy form of address. Non-tenure-track positions may be full or part time, although the qualifier "adjunct" always denotes part-time (whether combined with the word "professor" or not).
Research and teaching are among the main tasks of tenured and tenure-track professors, with the amount of time spent on research or teaching depending strongly on the type of institution. Publication of articles in conferences, journals, and books is essential to occupational advancement. In 2011, a survey conducted by TIAA-CREF Institute senior researcher Paul J. Yakoboski estimated that 73% of professors with senior tenure ranged between the ages of 60 and 66 and that the remaining 27% were above the age of 66. Yakoboski estimated that 75% of these professors have acknowledged that they have made no preparations for retirement due to the ongoing financial crisis and reluctance to leave their profession. A 2013 survey conducted by Fidelity Investments would echo similar results when the question about retirement came up.
In 2020, the National Center for Education Statistics counted 189,692 professors, 162,095 associate professors, 166,543 assistant professors, 96,627 instructors, 44,670 lecturers, and 164,720 other full-time faculty. Full-time faculty in degree-granting postsecondary institutions, by race/ethnicity, sex, and academic rank: Fall 2018, fall 2019, and fall 2020
Overview
The term "professors" in the United States refers to a group of educators at the college and university level. In the United States, while "Professor" as a proper noun (with a capital "P") generally implies a position title officially bestowed by a university or college to faculty members with a PhD or the highest level terminal degree in a non-academic field (e.g., MFA, MLIS), the common noun "professor" is often used casually to refer to anyone teaching at the college level, regardless of rank or degree. At some junior colleges without a formal ranking system, instructors are accorded the courtesy title of "professor".
Although almost all tenured professors hold doctorates, some exceptional scholars without them are occasionally granted tenure: Jay Forrester (electrical engineering, M.I.T.) had only a master's degree; Saul Kripke (philosophy, Rockefeller) and Andrew Gleason (mathematics, Harvard) had only a bachelor's degree; Edward Fredkin (computer science, M.I.T.) and Erik Erikson (psychology, Harvard) did not even have bachelor's degrees. Tenure without a doctorate is somewhat more common in fields with an artistic component, as with Howard Nemerov (poetry, Washington University in St. Louis) and Colin Rowe (architectural history and theory, Cornell). Until the middle of the 20th century, professors without doctorates were more common.
Tenured and tenure-track positions
These full-time faculty members with PhDs or other highest-level terminal degrees (designated as acceptable by a university or college, including the "professional equivalent" to the doctorate at institutions such as Columbia University), engage in both undergraduate and graduate teaching, mentoring, research, and service. Only faculty in these positions are eligible for tenure. : An introductory level professor. A position generally taken after receiving a PhD and often, especially in the sciences, completing a post-doctoral fellowship. After 7 years, in most American colleges and universities, a tenure-track faculty member (usually assistant professor) must be either awarded tenure, or dismissed from the university. : A mid-level, usually tenured, professor. Professor (sometimes referred to as "Full Professor"): a senior, tenured professor. Distinguished Professor or Endowed Chair (e.g., "the Brian S. Smith Professor of Physics"): An 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.
The top administrative post in many academic departments is the "department chair." Prior to the 1970s, such administrators were called "chairmen" or "chairwomen", but the term in most institutions has since been the gender-neutral "chairperson", or shortened to "chair". While many department chairs also hold endowed chair positions, the two positions are distinct.
Educators who hold a formal title of "Professor" (referred to as tenured/tenure-track faculty) typically begin their careers as assistant professors (or "lecturers" and "senior lecturers"), with subsequent promotions to the ranks of associate professor and finally professor. The titles are historical traditions; for example, it is not implied that an assistant professor "assists" more senior faculty. There is often a strict timeline for application for promotion from assistant to associate professor, most often 5 or 6 years following the initial appointment. Applicants are evaluated based on their contributions to research, teaching, and administration. The relative weightings of these contributions differ by institution, with PhD-granting universities usually placing more emphasis on research and liberal arts colleges placing more emphasis on teaching. The decision to grant tenure and promotion from assistant to associate professor usually requires numerous levels of approval, with a common sequence being: external reviewers—several nationally or internationally prominent academics in the candidate's field will be asked to review the candidate's application for promotion and submit a confidential report; based on this report and evidence of the candidate's accomplishments in his or her curriculum vitae, a committee of members from the candidate's department will make a recommendation for tenure/promotion or denial of such; the department will vote; the department decision is communicated to a university panel of individuals from outside of the department who evaluate the application and decide whether they agree or disagree with the departmental recommendation; the dean; the board of governors/president or other upper level governing body.
A decision to reject a candidate for tenure normally requires that the individual leave the institution within two years (under the AAUP tenure guidelines). Otherwise, tenure is granted along with promotion from assistant to associate professor. Although tenure and promotion are usually separate decisions, they are often highly correlated such that a decision to grant a promotion coincides with a decision in favor of tenure, and vice versa. Promotion to associate professor usually results in an increased administrative load and membership on committees that are restricted to tenured faculty.
Some people remain at the level of associate professor throughout their careers. However, most will apply for the final promotion to full professor; the timeline for making this application is more flexible than that for assistant to associate positions and the associate professor does not normally lose his/her job if the application is rejected. As with promotion from assistant to associate professor, promotion from associate to full professor involves review at multiple levels, similar to the earlier tenure/promotion review. This includes external reviews, decisions by the department, recommendations by members of other departments, and high-ranking university officials. Usually, this final promotion requires that the individual has maintained an active research program and excellent teaching, in addition to taking a leadership role in important departmental and extra-departmental administrative tasks. Full professor is the highest rank that a professor can achieve (other than in a named position) and is seldom achieved before a person reaches their mid-40s. The rank of full professor carries additional administrative responsibilities associated with membership on committees that are restricted to full professors.
Two-year community colleges that award tenure often use the "professor" ranking system as well. Candidates for tenure at those institutions would not normally need to hold a PhD, only the degree necessary (usually a master's) for employment as an instructor.
Non-tenure-track positions Individuals in these positions who typically (though not always) 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 that is less strong than tenure. They may still be referred to casually as "professor" and be described by the common-noun "professor", whether or not they have been officially designated that position title by the university or college. 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.
Professor of (the) practice and professor of professional practice: have commonly been reserved for practitioners who are appointed because of skills and expertise acquired in nonacademic careers and whose primary focus is teaching. This designation is bestowed on individuals who have achieved a distinguished career in a specific field of practice (engineering, management, business, law, medicine, architecture etc.), and will have a substantial basis of experience equal to a tenured professor (normally a minimum of 12 years) and a national/international reputation for excellence reflected in a record of significant accomplishments. Such appointments are also being offered to individuals with academic career backgrounds. These latter professors of practice are principally engaged in teaching and are not expected to be significantly involved in research activities. Collegiate professor, teaching professor, or clinical professor (with or without ranks): More recent titles with many different variations, sometimes dependent upon rank; these instructors may hold parallel ranks as their tenure-track counterparts (i.e., teaching assistant professor, teaching associate professor, and (full) teaching professor) at institutions whose policy is to only provide "tenure" to those who do research. In professional fields where such positions typically involve a practical or skills-based emphasis (e.g., medicine, law, engineering), they may be titled as clinical professors (in medical fields), studio professors (in architecture and design), or industry professors (in fields such as engineering and technology). In the sense of being teaching-focused and without research obligations, there are similarities to "professors of practice."