What is in a Name? Deciphering an academic title for Professors

Assistant Professor or Associate Professor? Adjunct Professor or Full Professor?

The academic world is full of crazy titles, some of which do not make sense to the average layman. I have worked at a private university for close to two years now, and it's been interesting to see what titles are out there, and how some titles are earned and baked into a school's bylaws, while others are bestowed. Ok, so maybe there are not over a thousand types of Professors out there, but there are easily dozens of appointment combinations.

Professor titles are like religions: they split and spread to try to cover new areas when one title no longer fits. The titles don't start with just Professors, though. The academic world has a number of crazy, obscure job titles, such as Ombudsman and Provost.

What in the world is a Provost?

A big example of bestowed titles come in administrative titles. The biggest title which leaves many people puzzled is one of the most important: the Provost. On my first day of work as an Assistant Professor/Librarian, I thought that a Provost was a ceremonial title. I imagine someone in a red vest and gold lame waving to students in a parade. In a meeting with the Provost among faculty librarians, the Provost asked us if there was anything that they would like to request of the Office of the Provost, and one of the 20+ year librarians raised his hand and asked, "I wouldn't know what to ask because I don't know what a Provost does."

Scene from the movie "Les Miserables," with Hugh Jackman

In older days, a Provost was a keeper of a prison. I guess that would make students the prisoners and professors the guards? But, seriously, a Provost is a senior administrator, leading administrators and faculty. She is like a President, but not the President.

Sort of like the differences between Presidents and Prime Ministers. They do similar things, but only one actually holds power. In this case, it is the President with the power. The Provost is responsible for the recruitment of Deans and Faculty, as well as ensuring high-quality educational curricula.

Do Assistant Professors, like, do all the grunt work?

So in the case of Professors, Rules for Appointment and Tenure in the Bylaws that are created by the schools within the university determine the exact ways Assistant Professors become Associate Professors. And, likewise, bylaws determine how Associate Professors become Full Professors. These promotions usually occur by a combination of 1) teaching students in classes and courses, 2) service to the university, such as work on committees, and 2) scholarship in the form of research and publication of journal articles or professional presentations at conferences. Usually some percentage is assigned to workload adding up to 100% of one's responsibility. As one moves up from the rank of Assistant to Associate, and then to Full Professor, certain thresholds are met. Usually more Scholarship is required to achieve higher rank.

So Assistant Professor titles do not mean that the Professor is not a faculty Professor, nor that the person works part-time or under another Professor as a supplementary teacher, doing all the grunt work. Rather, it is a title that indicates rank in a hierarchy. For these other situations (part-time, guest lecturer, etc.), one must look at Special Appointments.

Rainbow zebra from Glitter-graphics.com

Appointments come in different stripes

First there are regular and term appointments. Then there are special appointments. Within these are faculty and non-faculty appointments, tenure and non-tenure track appointments, and whatever other types of professor appointments I may have missed.

Regular appointments are renewable contracts for professors that range from 1 to 3 years and usually eligible for tenure at the end of a specified length of time. Term appointments are not eligible for tenure, but can be renewed. Term appointments are eligible for basic Instructor, Assistant Professor, and Associate Professor positions, but usually not Full Professor (depending on bylaws). Regular appointments are eligible for all of these.

Special appointments do not carry tenure and hold a special title not subject to review that regular and term appointments undergo. These titles are usually Lecturers (full or part-time renewable appointments) Visiting or Guest Lecturers, Adjunct Professors (renewable part-time appointments made at any rank), or others such as Administrative Appointments.

In the library, faculty librarians (full-time, teaching librarians) are appointed the rank of Assistant Professor in Library bylaws to start, and can achieve through Teaching, Service and Scholarship the ranks of Associate and Full Professor after a certain amount of years. The positions are renewable term positions. Of course, each library at each university may have different Rules in their bylaws.

A Perfect Example of a University Job Title

To sum up all of this nicely, see if you can decipher my appointment:

I, Mickel Paris, am a Librarian with a term appointment of Assistant Professor with faculty status of non-tenure track.
Oh and besides the titles of Librarian and Assistant Professor, I have a third title with eleven words in it. But that's a story for another day.