Academic Preparation vs Job Title
Academic preparation is normally obtained through a college degree. This degree certifies that you are qualified in some area or domain. That preparation typically qualifies you for a type of job. Do you want to be an accountant? Well, get a degree in Accounting. Sometimes the academic preparation is complemented with a professional certificate. Accountants, for example, have a CPA that conveys an even higher level of “certification.” Note that not all jobs required a 4 year degree or even a professional certification; some might only require 2 year degrees or even high school diplomas or just straight up experience.
In this writeup, I focus on PhD credentials and faculty jobs. Most faculty positions in academia need a PhD to get the job, particularly if you want a permanent job. A PhD entails a level of preparation that typically requires doing a dissertation, maybe publishing work (or performances if you are in the arts), and some varying amount of coursework. The PhD often comes from an accredited institution, giving credibility to the institution and the degrees it awards. A PhD signifies that you are qualified to do advanced knowledge creation and dissemination and by extension that you can teach. I acknowledge that not all PhD are the same, yes, there are some programs better than others. But let’s set that aside for a moment.
On the other hand, a job title, often accompanied by a job description, defines a job for which you can apply. Most jobs typically require some level of academic preparation or comparable experience. As I mentioned above, applying for a college faculty position typically requires a PhD. In general terms and under normal conditions, academic preparation and the job title go hand in hand. I have a PhD so I can apply to be a professor at an academic institution that requires that level of academic credentials. Or conversely, I want to be a faculty, thus I should get a PhD. The area of the degree also matters. I have a PhD in Computer Science, so without earning some additional credentials, I wouldn’t have much luck applying for a job in other disciplines.
Now that I have set up the context for you, let me make my argument.
Teaching-Track Faculty
Over the last few years, we have seen an increase in Teaching-Track faculty positions. In general, these are positions that require a PhD, but their responsibilities are different than the Tenure-Track counterpart. Teaching professors typically have a higher teaching load, possibly lower research expectations or an expectation of scholarly work focused on teaching/learning, and more responsibilities in the management of teaching (i.e., service).
Teaching-Track positions typically require PhDs. As stated before, people with PhD are qualified to do research, but some opt to apply for a Teaching-Track for personal reasons, maybe they enjoy teaching more than they enjoy research, or the job fits other personal goals (e.g., near family, position available where partner works). Again, their academic preparation says they are qualified to do research, but they are opting for a Teaching-Track.
This seems to confuse a lot of people. There is an assumption that Teaching-Track faculty are NOT qualified for a traditional Tenure-Track job and that’s why they want a Teaching-Track faculty.
To make it 100% clear, I am talking about positions, tenure and teaching, that require a PhD. The academic qualifications are the same. Just because I might be hired in a Teaching-Track position doesn’t mean I don’t have the preparation of doing research. As a matter of fact, any two recent PhDs from the same program have the same preparation and should be equally qualified for a job in academia. One might decide “I want to be a teaching professor” and another one might decide “tenure-track is for me.” This is worth repeating in upper case QUALIFICATIONS ARE THE SAME. The job title they apply for is different.
Let’s explore some of the issues that come up as a result of this misunderstanding.
What is in a name? Sometimes the name we use for thingss contributes to some misunderstanding. We talk about Teaching-Track faculty vs Tenure-Track faculty as if these two were complementary. Because of the name, it implies that only one of the two requires teaching, which is not true, tenure-track faculty have to teach too. Some places make this worse by defining Teaching-Track in terms of what they are not, often calling them Non-Tenure-Track faculty. I have even seen Teaching-Track faculty referred to as “Teaching people” rather than faculty. Or creating a new designation, “Special Faculty.”
What is ironic is that lots of universities are noticing this confusion and are starting to create “tenure-like” positions for Teaching professors. They call it things like “Security of Employment” and often describe it as “tenure for teaching track faculty.” Not sure why we don’t just call it tenure, but I have heard this argument: “Acknowledging that teaching track faculty can achieve tenure would diminish the accomplishment of the tenure-track faculty.” That’s just bullshit. This is euphemism enshrined in policy.
Teaching-Track faculty < Tenure-Track faculty. The conversation around professional development (e.g., contract renewal, promotion) for Teaching-Track faculty shows a class system where Tenure-Track positions have the privilege of sitting at the top of the class structure. There seems to be a classification (segregation?) of responsibilities that separates Teaching vs Non-Teaching (see what I did there?). This is seen clearly in how we talk about personnel movement within those positions. We often hear about Tenure-Track faculty that are not research active, for whatever reason, given the option of “Why not move them into a teaching-track position?”
This implies a demotion and reinforces the notion that Tenure-Track is the higher position of the two. It is also seen as a punishment, as if for not being research active, we are going to increase your teaching load. CLEARLY a punishment strategy rooted in this class system in academia.
Just to remind where this write up started, the academic qualifications are the same for both. The jobs are different. If you can’t do one job, normally you would either be fired or demoted. Teaching-Track is not a step down from Tenure-Track, it is a different job. Removing tenure is a demotion. Bringing you down from Full Professor to Associate is a demotion. Changing you from Tenure-Track to Teaching-Track is moving someone to a different job without going through the vetting process of hiring; that is not a demotion, it is a consolation prize.
Teaching-Track as gate keeping. Faculty understands how some courses serve as gatekeeping in our degrees. There is typically a course in all programs that has high DFW rates and it is often unofficially considered as a “weed out” course for the major (often unintentionally).
It is surprising, however, how we don’t think of Teaching-Track as gate keeping for Tenure-Track. Often if we don’t hire someone in a Tenure Track position, we offer them a Teaching-Track as a consolation price.
But the situation is more devious than that. Teaching faculty get to teach the intro courses. These are often the largest sections, the ones that are most controlled because of well defined learning objectives, and often the ones that are more difficult to teach because of wider variety of backgrounds among the students. Very rarely Tenure-Track faculty teach the intro courses, at least at the top research institutions (there are some really good exceptions to this). In particular, this is very common these days in Computing where enrollments are going in the opposite direction of general campus enrollment.
Tenure-Track faculty teach advanced courses and graduate courses. It is considered to be a privilege to teach these courses. Teaching intro level courses is considered to be a punishment. Few Tenure-Track faculty would volunteer to teach intro, often expressing “that’s for Teaching professors” as if that was beneath them. Remember, all of these people have the same academic preparation.
What is ironic is that it is more common for Teaching-Track faculty to teach advanced courses (senior electives or even graduate courses) than it is for Tenure-Track faculty to teach intro level courses. Who is the more qualified of the two then?
As is true with all class systems, patterns emerge that cannot be explained simply with meritocracy or individual qualifictions. In some disciplines, women and faculty of color have higher representation in the Teaching-Track positions than in the Tenure-Track positions. Be suspicious of faculty composition numbers, because more often than not, Teaching-Track numbers are being used as a way to hide the lack of improvements in promotion and insidious discrimination among tenure evaluations and decisions. The discrimination that has existed in hiring and promotion in Tenure-Track positions hasn’t changed because we hire members of marginalized communities into the lesser prestige, more restricted job.
Are you qualified to do that? One more point of gate-keepting. Teaching-track faculty are often restricted from participating in some traditional academic activities. Teaching-track are not allowed to supervise PhD students, for example. Often they face additional hurdles when writing grants (e.g., they might only be Co-PI but cannot lead a grant). Sometimes even the funding agency has restrictions. As of this writing, NSF CAREER awards require a letter from the department indicating the applicant will be employed for the duration of the award (the employee has a continuing appointment that is expected to last the five years of a CAREER grant), this is somewhat true for Tenure-Track faculty but not so for Teaching-Track faculty who are often in 2-3 year contracts.
To reiterate what has been said already, the academic preparation required for both Tenure-Track and Teaching-Track faculty is the same. I don’t understand why we go out of our way to classify them as separate.
Food for thought. If I haven’t convinced you yet, let me tell you a personal story. I received my PhD from George Washington University. Before I went to grad school, I had 2 years of experience teaching as an adjunct (I loved teaching so much that I decided to get a Phd). By the time I finish my PhD, I had 6 years of experience in a national research lab (Naval Research Lab). I had 3 papers at the top conference in my field (CHI). I think you can say that my resume looked fine. I have worked 4 years at UPRM, 15 at Virginia Tech and now 10 at UNCC. I was Visiting Professor at the US Naval Academy. At VT, I got tenure, was Associate Dean of the Graduate School, and Associate Chair of the CS department. In those 15 years, I graduated 10 PhD students, 5 of them went to academia. All of them achieved tenure (one left academia before tenure because industry in computing is very lucrative), and two of them got NSF CAREER Awards. At UNCC, I became full professor and served as Associate Dean of the College of Computing and recently graduated my first PhD. I have published well over 125 peer reviewed publications and have been successful with funding from industry and NSF. I have also a long list of national service and awards.
This looks like an above average Tenure-Track faculty resume. I recently was offered another job at a top college/department for a position dealing with broadening participation in computing. The job description matched my expertise perfectly. The position was advertised as tenure track at any level. I interviewed and was offered the job… but only as a Teaching-Track faculty.
I turned it down largely because of this. I asked “would I be able to supervise dissertations?” And the answer was “only as a co-chair.” Think about this. I have graduated 11 PhDs, I have done enough research that NSF hired me as a program officer, I have ran various conferences, served on national committees, have been Associate Dean of a Graduate School, and director of 2 PhD programs… YET because of the title of the job, I would not be allowed to do what I am more than qualified to do. My qualifications were completely ignored. Totally offensive and humiliating for no good reason.
Before we go blaming that other institution, at my current institution, I am co-advisor on a PhD committee that has as main advisor a Teaching-Track professor. It is one of the most awkward parts of my job. I feel like I am supervising two people, the graduate student and the Teaching-Track faculty. It is demeaning to the Teaching-Track faculty for the institution to tell them “you can’t do it alone” and have to follow what the “grown up” does. And it is confusing to the PhD student because now they have 2 supervisors. There is no reason for this. The Teaching-Track professor is totally qualified to do this job, in my case, more so given the area of the research. But because of some silly policy I have to be a watcher over the whole process.
It is not about qualifications, it is all about the job title and the class system that exists in academia.
In closing, academia has not done a good job in managing the different types of faculty jobs they offer. We confuse academic preparation (PhD required) vs. job title (tenure-track, tenured, assoc./full, teaching-track, etc.). Furthermore, the positions are described and managed as if one was better than the other. The hallway discussions reflects the feeling that one group of people, those on Teaching-Track, couldn’t do the other job because they are not “good enough”.
The system confounds the two. The academic preparation should describe the someone’s qualifications. The title is the job where someone was hired. Making rules about what one type of professor can and cannot do around the job title creates a class system that separates the faculty ranks and creates a privilege class. Let’s not sugar-coat it, this is academia’s latest caste system.
