What exactly does having the title “professor” in front of your name mean? Is there an official federal standard? State? Does the standard vary from field to field and if so, who determines the standards and criteria?
Can I put an ad in the paper offering to teach a class out of my home on nosepicking with classical guitar fingernails (of which I do informally profess to be an expert) and legally call myself “Professor Moe”?
How does this relate to the title “Doctor”? Is one considered superior to the other, or are they apples and oranges?
My father heard from someone that to be considered a professor you must have had something published but he was unsure if this was just an individual case or a more general standard.
A professor is someone who is hired in that capacity by a college or university. I have a Ph.D. in psychology, so I can use the title Dr. professionally. I was an assistant professor* when I taught at a college. Now, as a researcher for the Navy, I’m still Dr., but no longer Professor.
Publications are only relevant in that they are one of the criteria looked at when universities and colleges are hiring someone to teach and do research. It used to be that you could be hired as a junior professor without publications, but competition is much fiercer now, and you are expected to start publishing in graduate school.
*There are three levels in the U.S.: Assistant, associate and full professor.
In the sense we normally use it, the title “professor” is conferred by the educational institution a person works at, and is a job title. The standard will be set by the institution.
“Doctor” indicates you have completed a Doctoral degree, such as a PhD.
For most academic professorial posts, you will be required to have completed a terminal degree in your field, which usually means you have a Doctorate and will usually mean you have published. There will be exceptions, of course.
I suppose you could call yourself “professor”, though I doubt that the “Moe Institute of Nasal Excavation (MINE)” is going to be accredited any time soon.
“Professor” is basically a job title - it’s a position at a college or university. There are full Professors, Associate Professors, and Associate Professors. The kind of qualifications required to be hired for such positions varies from instition to insitution. Most, these days, would require a doctorate in most fields, while some do not. Most would also require a substantial body of publications as well.
“Doctor,” on the other hand, indicates the holder of an academic or professional degree - Ph.D., M.D., D.D.S., etc. Although many people with doctorates are also professors, many work outside academia and are not.
Ok, so where do these levels come from? Are these labels official at some national level? Or are they merely conventions that it just so happens a majority of institutions have chosen to adopt?
Instructor – doesn’t have a doctorate (though may be working on it). Usually reserved for adjuncts or those be hired short term.
Assistant professor – has a doctorate, but doesn’t have tenure, either because the position isn’t tenure track or he or she hasn’t been around long enough to apply for it.
Associate professor – has a doctorate, and has tenure.
Professor (aka, full professor) – has a doctorate and tenure and has been teaching and publishing for some time. The administration, in honor of the work, grants the full professorship. Sometimes these are also a sign of an endowed chair (a professorship whose salary is paid by a contributions of a donor).
There are differences in pay scales for each title.
They are conventions, and there is probably variation, but this is the general setup.
Well, professors are also connected with some academic department or other within their institution. So as a professor, you are a member of the psychology dept. or the math dept., or whatever. I believe an adjunct professor is someone who has some kind of connection with a particular department, but not as a regular member. Usually this would be someone whose specialty crosses disciplines.
Adjunct professors are part-time faculty. For instance, there are a couple programs in my neck of the woods in my field (mechanical engineering) that make heavy use of adjunct faculty. These adjunct professors will typically be experienced professionals that teach one or two classes a year, giving the students a different perspective on the subject than a purely academic teacher could. I imagine that the decision on whether to call these part-timers “adjunct professors” or “adjunct instructors” is in some sense a formality, although that decision might be a reflection of their perceived worth to the program.
These labels are “official” only with respect to the particular educational institution in question. There is no government agency, for example, that sets the standard for what any of these titles mean and there is no national organisation of educational institutions that defines what these terms mean.
I am an adjunct professor at the community college level. While some adjuncts just do it on the side because they already have some other full time job or they are retired or whatever, many do it because the colleges won’t hire full timers very often, and when they do, it’s only one or two. They save themselves a lot of dough by hiring us to teach the majority of the core courses.
(Of course, it sucks for those who have to teach at three, four or five different campuses to make ends meet on an adjunct’s salary. It’s worse for those with no collective bargaining agreement, or a weak agreement.) There are 30,000 adjuncts just in California.
Sorry, didn’t mean to get too much off the topic, or to rant. Just the facts.
Let’s not forget “Professor Emeritus” which is a title that is granted to some folks after they retire from their university. Where I work, it’s only an honorary thing, a nice thing to say at their retirement dinner. All retirees where I work get the same benefits. I have heard of other institutions where the title “Professor Emeritus” entitles the person to a higher level of retirement benefits. At some schools, you’re automatically Professor Emeritus when you retire from a Full Professor position, at other places only certain faculty members are recognized this way, usually people who have done a great deal for the institution.
Sometimes people retire from education, but continue to do some work in their field, say, consulting with a private firm. Some people consider it prestigious to be able to say they are a Consultant with Gizmo Biotech Inc, and Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Blah Blah Blah University.
Mentioning again that this changes from college to college, where I work students can call anyone teaching a class a professor. (The primary person teaching the class, so not a GA, as they are in theory assisting another person, even though they might be doing the actual bulk of the “teaching.”) For example, John Smith is hired as an Instructor to teach a course in pottery making. He has an MFA in Studio Arts, but not a doctorate degree. His students still address him as “Professor Smith” although it would be incorrect (and sort of shady of him not to correct them) if they called him “Dr. Smith.” Keep in mind this is a casual use (students in class addressing him as professor), and on his resume, he would still be obligated to list his correct job title according to Human Resources, which is “Instructor.”
All of this applies to the US, the European system has some different nuances for “Professor.”
Anyone teaching a course can be addressed as “Professor So-and-so” or “Professor” (although some folks, such as graduate students, generally aren’t/prefer not to be). It’s incorrect, though, to say that “So-and-so is a professor”, unless the person holds the academic rank of “professor”. It’s also possible for a full professor to not be teaching any classes; my advisor, for isntance, has only taught one full course in the last three years. He still gets addressed as “Professor”.
Most professors are doctors (although there might be some exceptions to that), so “professor” is generally held to to be a “higher” title.
At my school (Montana State University), a faculty member is very likely to be a full professor by the time he or she retires, and a professor who retires is automatically a professor emeritus. Note, also, that most professors emeritus keep on doing the same thing they were doing while “working” (teaching, research, or both), although possibly spending less time on it.
At my school (U. Cal Berkeley, and presumably the rest of UC), we had “Professors Emeritus” who were simply very old and very distinguished. They had made their splash, won their accolades, and were now semi-retired. They were still faculty in their departments, but didn’t have to teach; in my department, the one living EP had laboratory space, lectured from time to time, and advised students.