Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct research.
Comparison The table presents a broad overview of the traditional main systems, but there are universities which use a combination of those systems or other titles. Note that some universities in Commonwealth countries have adopted the American system in place of the Commonwealth system.
Commonwealth system American system German system Professor (chair) Distinguished professor or equivalent Professor (ordinarius, W3 with Chair, C4) Reader or principal lecturer (mainly UK) / associate professor (Australia, NZ, India, Southeast Asia, South Africa, Ireland) Full professor Professor (extraordinarius, W2, W3 without chair, C3) Senior lecturer Associate professor Hochschuldozent, Oberassistent (W2, C2) Lecturer Assistant professor Juniorprofessor, wissenschaftlicher Assistent, akademischer Rat (W1, C1, A13) Associate lecturer(commonly the entry-level position) Instructor Lehrbeauftragter
Uses around the world
Australia
In Australia, the term lecturer may be used informally to refer to anyone who conducts lectures at a university or elsewhere, but formally refers to a specific academic rank. The academic ranks in Australia are similar to those in the UK, with the rank of associate professor roughly equivalent to reader in UK universities. The academic levels in Australia are (in ascending academic level): (A) associate lecturer, (B) lecturer, (C) senior lecturer, (D) associate professor, and (E) professor.
India
In India, one can appear for interviews for a post of a lecturer after passing the National Eligibility Test conducted by the University Grants Commission.
The position is equivalent to assistant professor in the US system. The term is not universally applied, with some universities preferring the lecturer/reader/professor titles, while others work with the assistant professor/associate professor/professor title.
As such, most lecturers' position can be considered tenure track.
In many states of India, the term lecturer or Post Graduate Teacher (PGT) is also used for the intermediate college teachers. The intermediate colleges or Junior Colleges are equivalent to higher secondary schools. Such lecturers are subject experts specifically engaged to teach a particular subject in higher classes.
United Kingdom
In the UK, the term lecturer is ambiguous and covers several academic ranks. The key distinction is between permanent/open-ended or temporary/fixed-term lectureships.
A permanent lecturer in UK universities usually holds an open-ended position that covers teaching, research, and administrative responsibilities. Permanent lectureships are tenure-track or tenured positions that are equivalent to an assistant or associate professorship in North America. After a number of years, a lecturer may be promoted based on their research record to become a senior lecturer. This position is below reader (principal lecturer in post-1992 universities) and professor.
In contrast, fixed-term or temporary lecturers are appointed for specific short-term teaching needs. These positions are often non-renewable and are common post-doctoral appointments. In North American terms, a fixed-term lecturer can hold an equivalent rank to non tenure-track (visiting) assistant professor. Typically, longer contracts denote greater seniority or higher rank. Teaching fellows may also sometimes be referred to as lecturers—for example, Exeter named some of that group as education and scholarship lecturers (E & S) to recognise the contribution of teaching, and elevate the titles of teaching fellows to lecturers. Some universities also refer to graduate students or others, who undertake ad-hoc teaching for a department sessional lecturers. Like adjunct professors and sessional lecturers in North America, these non-permanent teaching staff are often very poorly paid (as little as £6000 p.a. in 2011–12). These differing uses of the term "lecturer" cause confusion for non-UK academics.
In some cases, a short-term native speaker teaching a foreign language program, may be referred to as a "lector", in a borrowing from French.
As a proportion of UK academic staff, the proportion of permanent lectureships has fallen considerably. This is one reason why permanent lectureships are usually secured only after several years of post-doctoral experience. Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show that in 2013–14, 36% of full- and part-time academic staff were on fixed-term contracts, down from 45% a decade earlier. Over the same period, the proportion of academic staff on permanent contracts rose from 55% to 64%. Others were on contracts classed as "atypical".'
Historical use Historically in the UK, promotion to a senior lectureship reflected prowess in teaching or administration rather than research, and the position was much less likely to lead directly to promotion to professor.
In contrast, promotion to senior lecturer nowadays is based on research achievements (for research-intensive universities), and is an integral part of the promotion path to a full chair. Promotion to reader (or principal lecturer in post-1992 universities) is sometimes still necessary before promotion to a full chair; however, some universities no longer make appointments at the level of reader (for instance, the University of Leeds and the University of Oxford). Senior lecturers and readers are sometimes paid on the same salary scale, although readers are recognized as more senior.
Many open-ended lecturers in the UK have a doctorate (50.1% in 2009–2010) and often have postdoctoral research experience. In almost all fields, a doctorate is a prerequisite, although historically this was not the case. Some academic positions could have been held on the basis of research merit alone, without a higher degree.For example, David Fowler retired as a senior lecturer in mathematics at Warwick in 1990 without having obtained a doctorate. See "Obituary: David Fowler" , The Independent
Current uses The new universities (that is universities that were until 1992 termed polytechnics) have a slightly different ranking naming scheme from the older universities. Many pre-1992 universities use the grades: lecturer (A), lecturer (B), senior lecturer, reader, professor. Meanwhile, post-1992 grades are normally: lecturer, senior lecturer, principal lecturer (management-focused) or reader (research-focused), professor. Much confusion surrounds the differing use of the "senior lecturer" title. A senior lecturer in a post-1992 university is equivalent to a lecturer (B) in a pre-1992 university, whereas a senior lecturer in a pre-1992 university is most often equivalent to a principal lecturer in a post-1992 university.Graham Webb, Making the Most of Appraisal: Career and Professional Development Planning for Lecturers, Routledge, 1994, p. 30,
According to the Times Higher Education, the University of Warwick decided in 2006 "to break away from hundreds of years of academic tradition, renaming lecturers 'assistant professors', senior lecturers and readers 'associate professors' while still calling professors 'professors'. The radical move will horrify those who believe the "professor" title should be reserved for an academic elite."Lee Elliot Major, "Get the drinks. It's professor all round", Times Higher Education, 31 March 2006 Nottingham has a mixture of the standard UK system, and the system at Warwick, with both lecturers and assistant professors. At Reading, job advertisements and academic staff web pages use the title associate professor, but the ordinances of the university make no reference to these titles. They address only procedures for conferring the traditional UK academic ranks.
Tenure and permanent lectureships Since the Conservatives' 1988 Education Reform Act, the ironclad tenure that used to exist in the UK has given way to a less-secure form of tenure. Technically, university vice-chancellors can make individual faculty members redundant for poor performance or institute departmental redundancies, but in practice, this is rare. The most noted use of this policy happened in 2012 at Queen Mary University of London where lecturers on permanent contracts were fired. The institution now has a stated policy of firing and replacing under-performing teaching staff members. This policy is complicated by the 2008 Ball v Aberdeen tribunal decision, the distinction between teaching and research faculty is blurring—with implications for who can and cannot be made redundant at UK universities, and under what conditions.
Despite this recent erosion of tenure in the UK, it is still practised in most universities. Permanent contracts use the word "tenure" for lecturers who are "reappointed to the retiring age". This is equivalent to a US tenure decision—references are sought from world-leading academics and tenure and promotions committees meet to decide "tenure" cases. There is normally no title elevation in such instances—tenure and title are independent.
United States
As different US academic institutions use the term lecturer in various ways, there is sometimes confusion. On a generic level, the term broadly denotes college-level faculty who are not eligible for tenure and have no research obligations. At non-research colleges, the latter distinction is less meaningful, making the absence of tenure the main difference between lecturers and other academic faculty. Unlike the adjective "adjunct" (which can modify most academic titles, and generally refers to part-time status), the title of lecturer at most schools does not address the issue of full-time vs. part-time status.
Lecturers are almost always required to have at least a master's degree and quite often have earned doctorates. (For example, at Columbia University in New York, the title of lecturer actually requires a doctorate or its professional equivalent; they also use the term for "instructors in specialized programs.") Sometimes the title is used as an equivalent alternative to instructor, but schools that use both titles tend to provide relatively more advancement potential (e.g. multiple ranks of progression, at least some of which entail faculty voting privileges or faculty committee service) to their lecturers. The term "instructor" can be broad enough to cover certain non-faculty teaching roles, such as when graduate students teach undergraduates.GSI Teaching & Resource Center
Major research universities are more frequently hiring full-time lecturers, whose responsibilities tend to focus primarily in undergraduate education, especially for introductory/survey courses. In addition to the reason of higher-ranking faculty tending to prefer higher-level courses, part of the reason is also cost savings, as non-tenure-track faculty tend to have lower salaries.Wayback Machine When a lecturer is part-time, there is little practical distinction in the position from an adjunct professor/instructor/etc., since all non-tenure-track faculty by definition are not on the tenure track. However, for full-time lecturers (or those regularly salaried above some stated level, such as half-time), many institutions now incorporate the role quite formally—managing it with performance reviews, promotional tracks, administrative service responsibilities, and many faculty privileges (e.g. voting, use of resources, etc.).