Some confusion about college teaching

Professors,

TAs, &

Instructors

A Guide to College and University Teachers on Your Campus

© Naomi Rockler-Gladen

Jun 18, 2008

So who are these people who are teaching you on your college or university campus? Here's a guide to professors, TAs, and instructors.

Professors

So here’s how being a professor works. First, a professor gets a PhD in his or her area of specialty (or almost gets one; some professors are hired without a PhD). This takes an awfully long time, typically an additional six years of school beyond a bachelor’s degree. Then there’s the process of finding a job. Many recent PhD have to take temporary positions for a while because the job market is so competitive.

One of the worst parts of being a professor is that you usually can’t choose where you live. There are only a handful of jobs open at any given time, so a professor has to be willing to move to wherever, even if it’s Freezerburn State University in Alaska or Alligator Swamp University in Mississippi.

Lucky PhD’s who find jobs are called assistant professors. Assistant professors work extremely hard for for about six years, hoping and praying they do not get fired. They then apply to receive permanent job security, known as tenure.

Once professors receive tenure, they cannot be fired unless they really, really mess up, so tenure is a sweet deal (and a lousy deal for students who are stuck with a few of these professors, who put in as little work as possible after tenure). To get tenure, a professor writes a long, long document in which she tries to persuade the powerful people at her school that she has done a great job so far.

If the powerful people agree, the professor gets tenure. If they disagree, the professor gets fired, and usually has a year to find a job at another school (or to go find something less stressful to do for a living). Many professors don’t get tenure, especially at prestigious schools, so this means that assistant professors are under an incredible amount of pressure to impress everybody in sight.

.After an assistant professor receives tenure, he or she receives the title of associate professor. After working hard for many more years, an associate professor can be promoted to full professor, which is the top of the hierarchy in terms of status and pay.

What does an assistant professor have to do to get tenure? Professors have three job duties: teaching, research, and service. In smaller schools, professors teach a lot of classes and aren’t expected to do much research. In bigger universities, professors teach fewer classes and do a great deal of research. Some professors in research institutions value the teaching part of their job, but you’ll find others who would rather be doing their research and consider students to be a nuisance.

Some professors conduct scientific or medical research; others study historical documents or human behavior, or write essays about social issues. Once their research is turned into manuscript form, professors are required to get it published in academic journals. Unfortunately, academic journals are written in Obscure Theoretical Mumbo-Jumbo, so mostly nobody reads them except for other professors. If an assistant professor doesn’t get enough Obscure Theoretical Mumbo-Jumbo published in prestigious journals, he will not get tenure

Professors also are expected to do service work for the college or university. Some service is fun, like helping out with student organizations. Other service is about as much fun as going to the dentist. Usually this involves committee work, in which professors argue for hours about things like the exact wording of the course catalog.

Teaching Assistants

If you go to a large university, some of your classes will be taught by graduate students who work as teaching assistants (or TAs). At some schools, these teachers are known as graduate assistants, or GAs. Sometimes TAs assist professors with large classes, and others teach their own.

In terms of pay and respect, TAs are at the bottom of the hierarchy. In exchange for teaching, they usually receive free tuition and very small monthly stipend. TAs are inexperienced, so they can be poor teachers, but not always. They often put a lot of effort into their classes because they want to prove themselves. Because most of them are young, they relate well to undergrads.

College Instructors

In addition, some of your teachers are called instructors or adjuncts. Usually these are people who do not have a PhD (but who usually have a master's degree) who teach part-time. Instructors are not too far up the hierarchy from teaching assistants, and they often are paid quite poorly. Often they have a lot of teaching experience and (gasp!) might actually have employment in the “real world” as well, so they may be more in touch with reality than the rest of your teachers.

A Final Note on Your Teachers

You'll find quite a bit of diversity amongst your teachers, and that diversity goes far beyond the teacher's title. Sometimes, the less experienced teachers are much better than the more experienced ones. In any case, give all your teachers a chance. Although some are better than others, almost all of them have something valuable to offer you -- if you give them the chance.