Professorship
Most common hierarchy
For regular faculty (i.e., not counting administrative positions such as chairships or deanships, nor positions considered "staff" rather than faculty), the descending hierarchy in most cases is: * Chair, Distinguished, Endowed or University Professor (Other such ''titles of special distinction'' vary by institution) * Professor ("Background
Traditionally, Assistant Professor has been the usual entry-level rank for faculty on the "''tenure track''", although this depends on the institution and the field. Then, promotion to the rank of Associate Professor and later Professor (informally, "Full Professor") indicates that significant work has been done in research, teaching and institutional service. Although the associate rank usually indicates that a tenure-track professor has been granted tenure, some tenure-track personnel may be hired at the associate rank from another academic institution or a nonacademic profession contingent on the expectation that they will soon receive tenure. In rare instances, one may be tenured and remain at the assistant rank if promotion to the higher rank is not contingent on the bestowal of tenure. It typically takes about six years or so to advance in rank. The time for advancement between associate to full professor is less rigid than for assistant to associate. Typically, failure to be promoted to associate professor from assistant results in termination following a 1-year appointment. Although it can engender professional stigmatization, tenured faculty are usually permitted to remain in the associate grade indefinitely, with some institutions now conferring emeritus status at that rank. In applied fields, such as engineering, law, medicine, business, or journalism – and lately expanding to others – faculty types can also include Clinical Professor or Professor of Practice. Often tied to secure, long-term contracts with significant review processes, these ranks are generally not tenure-track and emphasize practitioner knowledge and skills rather than scholarly research. Depending on the discipline and range of experience, incumbents in these positions may only possess an undergraduate degree or a secondary school diploma. A variant is the less-common title of Teaching Professor, which is not limited to professional fields. Recently, some institutions have created separate tenure tracks for such positions, which may also be given other names such as "lecturer with security of employment". Other faculty who are not on the tenure track in the U.S. are often classified as Lecturers (or more advanced Senior Lecturers) or Instructors, who may teach full-time or have some administrative duties, but have no research obligations (essentially the converse of ''"research-only" faculty'' or "research-only staff", which has no true counterpart because teaching positions are almost always "faculty" – except for student-assistantships), which also come in various forms and may be either tenure-track or not. Both Lecturers and Instructors typically hold advanced graduate/professional degrees. The term "professor" as a common noun is often used for persons holding any kind of faculty position. In academic medicine, Instructor usually denotes someone who has completed residency, fellowship, or other post-doctoral (M.D./D.O.) training but who is not tenure-track faculty. Any faculty title preceded with the qualifier "Adjunct" normally denotes part-time status (usually ''less than half-time''). Adjunct faculty may have primary employment elsewhere (either another school, or as a practicing professional), though in today's saturated academic market many doctorate-holders seek to earn a living from several adjunct jobs (to the advantage of institutions, which do not typically offer such faculty retirement/health benefits or long-term contracts). At some institutions, the job title Part-time Lecturer (PTL) is used instead. Although "Professor" is often the highest rank attained by a senior faculty member, some institutions may offer a unique title to a senior faculty member whose research or publications have achieved wide recognition. This may be a "named professorship" or "named chair" – for example, the "John Doe Professor of Philosophy". Named chairs typically but not exclusively include a small discretionary fund from an endowment set aside for the recipient's use. Large research universities also offer a small fraction of tenured faculty the title of "Distinguished Professor", "Distinguished Teaching Professor", or "Distinguished Research Professor" to recognize outstanding contributions. Some universities have as their highest rank "University/Institute Professor"; such faculty members are not usually answerable to deans or department heads and may report directly to the university provost. In research, faculty who direct a lab or research group may in certain research contexts (e.g., grant applications) be calledTemporary faculty and special appointments
The ranks of lecturer and senior lecturer are used at some American universities to denote permanent teaching positions (full or part-time) with few or no research responsibilities.Research personnel
Fellowships andTeaching personnel
Teaching assistants (TAs) are known by various related terms and are typically graduate students who have varying levels of responsibility. A typical undergraduate class, for example, comprises lecture and small-group recitation/discussion sessions, with a faculty member giving the lecture, and TAs leading the small-group sessions; in other cases, the teaching of an entire class may be entrusted to a graduate student. (''See generally'Ecclesiastical ranks