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To further clarify: The UK has the distinct titles "reader" and "lecturer" before "professor." In the US, if you have a PhD and you're teaching a college class,
by scott_s 9y ago
To further clarify: The UK has the distinct titles "reader" and "lecturer" before "professor." In the US, if you have a PhD and you're teaching a college class, you're called a professor, even if you're an adjunct (not tenure track). The tenure track titles are "assistant professor", "associate professor" and then just "professor." Informally, we tend to use "professor" to refer to all of them, and it's common for people to say "Professor Doe" even if the person is an assistant professor.
- chrisseaton 9y agoOh sorry I did know that I remember now. Here professor is quite a distinguished title, and while it isn't legally protected, I've never seen it used for anyone except a very senior academic who has been formally appointed as a professor.
- tnecniv 9y agoThe US still has lecturers (who normally have PhDs), but the title is different from the UK one.
- scott_s 9y agoI have never seen the title "lecturer" used in the US. Can you recall where you saw it? The title "instructor" is quite common when the person does not have a PhD.
- pgbovine 9y agoLecturers are part- or full-time teaching faculty (usually not tenure-track, but some schools like UC's have tenure-track Lecturer tracks) e.g., https://profiles.stanford.edu/48960 https://profiles.stanford.edu/48960
- scott_s 9y agoInteresting, it was not a title used in the schools I attended (Virginia Tech, William and Mary) or have I seen it used elsewhere. I just checked Harvard, and they use it, too, so it's not just a west coast thing.
- wl 9y agoLecturer is used at the University of California for instructors with a PhD and no research responsibilities. Some of them even have a form of tenure, "security of employment."
- schoen 9y agoA prominent example in computer science was Brian Harvey https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/ https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/ who designed and then taught the introductory computer science course (CS 61A) for many years and is now retired.
- rifung 9y agoI believe lecturer is used even if they don't have PhDs. At least this was the case at UCSD where we had several.
- erikpukinskis 9y agohttps://www.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=69c67db832c84ca4&from=serp https://www.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=69c67db832c84ca4&from=se...
- pgbovine 9y agoyep, this is often confusing for folks coming in from other countries: http://pgbovine.net/professor-job-titles.htm http://pgbovine.net/professor-job-titles.htm