Trends for "teaching-only" jobs?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I’m interested in trends for teaching-only jobs. I know that Lecturer/VAP positions have been around for many years, and I’ve held these myself. In recent years, I’ve noticed an increased number of ads for “Instructional Assistant Professors,” “Assistant Teaching Professors,” etc. Some of these seem to have more expectation of permanency than the Lecturer positions, and I’ve seen some with promotion schedules. But the position titles are not consistently applied.

Have others observed this trend? Do others perceive that these are more permanent than Lecturers? Those of you chairing searches or involved in obtaining permission to run searches, what considerations prompt you to seek a teaching-only position? I wonder, for instance if they are less common in schools with graduate programs, because perhaps the grad students fill some of those needs. And what determines the position title?

I ask because, after a decade in the profession, teaching philosophy is my greatest strength. As I make some decisions about my future, I’d love to hear about trends in teaching-only jobs.

I've definitely noticed this trend, though I'm not sure what best explains it.

Do any readers have any helpful insights?

Comments

[Prof L]

I don't think that there is an established convention here in terms of naming (like what the difference is across institutions) ... My sense is that there is an increase in permanent, non-tenurable teaching-only jobs at research universities, with a higher load. And that these are called various things: assistant teaching professor, lecturer, instructor, assistant instructional professor, etc.

But I've also seen non-permanent jobs under such titles. My sense is that you have to ask about permanence, even with the "renewable term" language, since sometimes "renewable" does not mean it is likely to be renewed, sometimes it means that it is almost guaranteed.

[Michel]

To add to the inconsistency, I know of such jobs at a school with a PhD program, and one with an MA. In both cases, they're permanent and tenurable positions, identical to the rest of the department in every way except that the teaching load is higher and research expectations lower (and can include scholarship of teaching and learning), and tenure requires some sort of teaching-focused contribution (e.g. developing courses/programs, open-access texts, etc.).

[Tim O'Keefe]

Yes, this is definitely a trend. At Georgia State University, where I teach, we currently have four such positions.

At GSU, they're called "Lecturers," and it's intended to be a permanent/long-term position. It doesn't come with tenure (or the protections of tenure), but people hired into them can reasonably expect to make a career staying here, if they wish to. (One of our lecturers has been here well over 20 years, and another recently retired.) Lecturers are full members of the department, serve on committees, vote on issues at departmental meetings, etc. The positions come with full medical and retirement benefits. There is also the possibility of promotion to higher ranks of lecturer, and in year 6--IIRC, I'd want to confirm--there is an extensive "up or out" review to be promoted from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer, akin to the TT Assistant to Associate review.

I think for anybody whose main interest is in teaching, it's a pretty good position. There are no research expectations--research is not part of one's annual evaluations or promotion evaluations. The starting pay is less than for an Assistant Professor here, but it's a decent salary, and my sense is that it's competitive with, and in many cases better than, the salary you'd expect to get from a teaching-heavy TT position (e.g., 4/3 or 4/4) at a regional state school. (NB: that's just my vague sense; I have not actually done research into the salaries of other places to confirm it.)

Why have Lecturers/Instructional Assistant Professors/Assistant Teaching Professors? Basically, it's because a department has unmet teaching demand. It would be too expensive to meet it by hiring a bunch a TT faculty teaching a 2/2 load. If you're at an R1 with a grad program, some of your service classes will be taught by grad students. We do this at GSU, with students in the second year of our terminal MA program. But they teach Critical Thinking, Intro to Philosophy, and Intro to Ethics, whereas Lecturers teach a wider variety of classes, at lower and upper levels. It's possible to fill teaching needs with adjuncts and VAPs. This an easy way to fill temporary needs, e.g., if somebody goes on leave. But if you have ongoing unmet demand, that you expect to continue, it's better, both pedagogically and ethically, to meet that demand by hiring somebody into a full-time, permanent position. Also, a school might have some specific teaching need that they want to make sure is filled by a person with expertise in that area. (For instance, we recently hired somebody who specializes in biomedical ethics to teach classes in that area, because biomedical ethics had just been made part of the curriculum for a large non-philosophy major.)

Luckily, the admin at GSU agreed that it's better to have teaching done by permanent faculty than by armies of adjuncts or a rolling series of visiting faculty. So the way you make a pitch for a Lecturer is by demonstrating that, with your enrollment patterns, long-term you do have the teaching needs to support a Lecturer. Or, as with the specialist with Biomedical Ethics mentioned above, you have some curricular proposal that requires specific teaching competencies, and you can make a convincing case that the demand created by these new courses and/or new requirements justifies the Lecturer line.

Although (once again) I haven't carefully looked into this, my sense is that these sorts of positions are more common at research intensive programs. That's because at such programs, the teaching loads of TT faculty are lower, and their salaries are generally higher, so having separate teaching-focused positions makes a lot of sense.

[Lecturer_Curious]

Does anyone have a sense of the general salary progession for these positions? I'm interested, but my main reservation about them is that they might not pay very well in the long term (e.g. how does senior lecturer pay compared to associate/full professor?).

[Chris]

I'm at one of schools with a PhD program that Michel mentions that has a "teaching stream" in addition to regular research positions, as well as various other kinds of less permanent positions (lecturers, sessionals, etc). We do not have enough graduate students to meet all of our teaching needs, nor enough regular research faculty (unless the admin increased all our teaching loads significantly, or let us go on a big research faculty hiring spree).

Whether it is an increasing trend, I don't know. But relatively recently (in last decade or two), our university decided to implement the "teaching stream" positions that are tenure track. The teaching load is higher; the research expectations reduced (though they involve doing "research on the scholarship of teaching and learning" to get promoted to tenure and higher.)

Mostly this is a budgetary compromise - it would be better if all classes were taught by the research stream, but having the teaching stream is better than having more temporary and non-tenure track positions.

The good news is that the teaching stream faculty are paid (almost) as well as the regular research faculty, with the usual promotions possible to associate and full (teaching) professor.

The less good news is that they are still expected to make (outside the classroom) contributions to "teaching pedagogy" to get promoted, merit raises, etc. Once you're on the teaching track, you don't get merit or bonuses for doing regular research.

That can be a big drawback for some faculty, especially given the fact that the job market is so terrible that people who are hired into the teaching positions often have just as good of traditional research profile (at least upon hiring) as those in the research stream. But now that you're hired in a teaching position, the incentives have changed.

In addition, if our last search is any indication, very few (if any) philosophers are doing "pedagogy focused" dissertation projects. So you're really hiring someone with philosophical expertise - who you hope has developed some side pedagogy projects that look like will turn into their primary work outside the classroom.

My sense - from talking to people in this kind of teaching stream position across our university - is that some of them are happy but some feel like second class citizens and some resent that they're no longer rewarded for their traditional research (and what counts as "pedagogy research" is often unclear), but only for their "pedagogy" research. Of course, they recognize that more temporary positions are even worse than "second class".

[Anon]

I am currently an Assistant Teaching Professor at a large public university - I can tell you what the title means at my university - but I'm not sure how generalizable it is. My position is a permanent, tenure track line - with the same tenure clock that research professors have. I 'have a say' in all department matters, in that I attend faculty meetings and vote on the same hires, promotions and policies as everyone else. My salary was also set as the same as any starting (assistant) research professor - and I had a generous research fund when I started my position. The main differences between the teaching and research lines have two parts; first (understandably) there is a heavier teaching load for me. I teach six courses per year, rather than four. Additionally, my promotion and tenure standards are different. The same elements are considered for me as someone on the research track - with research, teaching, and service all playing a role - but they are weighted differently. Evidence of teaching excellence is primarily what tenure is based on, and while research counts, it is not as significant. (For research professors, the reverse is true – tenure is primarily determined based on research, but teaching plays a role).

Our university is increasing the number of teaching professors due to high demand. Previously, we had hired numerous adjuncts to meet teaching needs, who were really being exploited for their labor – with low salaries, heavy teaching loads and no job security. My university is trying to shift away from relying on adjuncts to a system where classes are taught by professors with permanent positions. They do not have the funds to hire as many research professors as they would need to for this, and so are hiring teaching professors.

[Trevor Hedberg]

The position I hold at the University of Arizona has some of these features. I am considered a "career-track" faculty member. These positions are not tenure eligible but follow a similar promotional path to tenure-line professors. In the Honors College (where all faculty are career track), all of us have multi-year contracts and a 60% teaching / 20% research / 20% service workload.

My impression is that positions like this have been created as a compromise between creating new tenure-track positions and relegating too much teaching to adjuncts and VAPs. A lot of universities need more teaching faculty, but the faculty want some career stability and adequate compensation, and there are also logistical costs to having to run a search for new lecturers, VAPs, etc., each year.

[asst teaching prof]

I'm an assistant teaching prof at a large public state university. At my institution, teaching professors are fulltime faculty w salary, benefits, etc. We have multi year contracts and are not tenure eligible. There is also a promotion track - from assistant to associate, and then to full teaching professor. Service is required, and there is a research expectation (although the bar for the latter is very low). The teaching load is 4/4. At my institution, this kind of position is definitely treated as stable and permanent. When I was interviewing for this job, the chair of the search committee (who was himself an associate teaching professor) made clear to me that contract renewal is basically a foregone conclusion, barring some serious issue. That has so far been accurate. I'm still on the market trying to land a TT position. However, if I had to stay at this job that would be okay. It's a good gig, esp if you like teaching. Another plus is that there's not too much pressure to publish. You can work on papers over the summer, etc.

[Tim O'Keefe]

Does anyone have a sense of the general salary progression for these positions?

At least at Georgia State, it's comparable to the salary progression for TT jobs. There is an annual review, and the results of that annual review shape how much of a salary bump you get for the next academic year. (NB: how much of a pool is available for these annual raises varies widely from year to year, depending on the state's finances and how that filters down to the university's finances. Many years, there is no annual raise pool available at all, whereas other years it's pretty good.) And you get a decent bump to your base salary when you are promoted to a higher lecturer level.

[Curious Teacher]

OP here - thanks everyone for these very helpful comments!