What is the difference between a Professor, Associate Professor and Assistant Professor?

What's the difference between a professor, an associate professor, and an assistant professor at a college?

• Answer:

  These are different 'ranking levels' for faculty members that reflect both the seniority and level of achievement for a given professor. Almost without exception, a new professor is hired at the 'assistant professor' level. For the next few years, that professor goes through the 'tenure' process - establishing a track record for teaching and research in their field. After about five years, the department (or sometimes a more diverse committee, or both) examines the professor's teaching record, publication record, and level of research funding and votes eigher to grant or deny tenure (and with it the rank of associate professor). A professor who is denied tenure can try again, but is often forced to move to a different university or into a non-academic position. A professor who is granted tenure usually continues to build up their teaching and research until they are eventually promoted to the position of 'full professor'. I should mention that if you are choosing between professors for a course, there is not always a correlation between the rank of a professor and their teaching competence. Some assistant professors are great - their energy level is high and they are young enough to remember undergraduate life - while others were 'mistake' hires and are not good teachers. Similarly, some full professors are excellent at both teaching and research and really care about their students, while others keep teaching because that is all they know but they are just going through the motions. I hope this helps!