Path to Professorship: A Plan

Paying Your Dues The path to becoming a tenured college professor is arduous. In addition, post-doctoral experience is an added advantage. Personal relationships with faculty is also critical in this hunt for a first job, as teaching positions in many areas particularly the humanities can be scarce.

The path to a professorship

While approximately 80 percent of college jobs are in four-year institutions, about a third of all college faculty are employed part-time or in non-tenure track positions, and this percentage has risen in recent years as colleges attempt to control costs. Present and Future The mission of the first colleges in the United States was to train ministers for the new colonies. The concept of the modern liberal arts education did not appear in America until , with the founding of the University of Virginia; today, this principle of the secular faculty is the norm rather than the exception.

Since then, coeducation has become the rule. Openings for college professors should increase significantly beginning in the late s as the generation of faculty who entered the field in the s and s begins to retire and the children of the baby-boom generation begin to reach college age. Demand should grow for professors in growing fields such as computer science and engineering, while employment for humanities professors will likely remain tight. At this stage, the recent Ph. In the sciences, 50 percent of Ph. Half do not find academic jobs.

The young assistant professor works long hours for minimal pay, teaching several undergraduate classes and beginning to establish the research and writing record necessary to advance in her field. In smaller schools and at two-year colleges, there is often less pressure to publish, but these are busy years regardless of where the junior professor teaches. If the professor has been aggressive and lucky enough to get a monograph published and establish a clear area of expertise, she is on the verge of being promoted to associate professor and awarded tenure, events which are normally expected after the sixth year.

The path to professorship is long, rocky and confusing. Why?

Associate professors have more control over their teaching schedules; they are likely to be teaching fewer low-level classes, and more classes and seminars in their areas of specialization with older undergraduates and graduate students. By now, professors have hopefully either made tenure at the university where they started, found another university which will give them tenure, or left the profession altogether.

Failing these options, she may remain exploited as an adjunct professor, with all the demands of a tenured position but not the freedom, prestige, or security. A college or post-secondary professor needs mastery of the subject matter and the talent of teaching in an engaging manner.

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Good presentation skills, critical thinking ability and an understanding of diverse students and learning styles help a professor succeed. Except for teachers of career subjects, professors at two-year colleges generally need a master's degree, while those in four-year institutions or professional schools usually need a doctorate. A four-year bachelor's degree is the first step in becoming a professor in a community college or university.

Do You REALLY Want to Be a Professor?

Chose a major closely related to the one you plan to study in graduate school and later teach. A bachelor's degree is often sufficient education to teach so-called career courses in a technical school or two-year college, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Examples of career subjects are auto mechanics, cosmetology and culinary arts. Complete a master's degree in the subject you plan to teach at a community college or university.

Moving up the academic ladder

A master's is usually all you need to teach in a two-year college, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If an academic were the ideal candidate for promotion, how would anyone tell? Many criteria are defined in such vague terms that it makes it impossible to objectively measure them. Vague criteria make it difficult for any promotion committee to do their job objectively, and can leave promotions open to political power play.

An academic who has made themselves unpopular with management, by challenging their policies, can easily be denied promotions. It strikes me that universities are missing an opportunity to use promotions criteria to guide academics in their careers and to make the process more objective.

Defining specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound SMART criteria should be within reach. Yet this assumes that the organisation has an actual interest in guiding and promoting its staff.

Master's Degree

Which in many cases it does not. Obscure promotions criteria and fierce competition come at a price. To become part of the lucky 3.

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• Qualifications for a university professorship.
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This makes us highly vulnerable whenever we experience setbacks at work.