Assistant Professor vs. Associate Professor — The Difference

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Academia, which refers to the world of colleges and universities, has its own language. The different titles used by faculty are part of that language.

To make things even more confusing, academic titles vary not just around the world but within institutions.

However, you can make some broad assumptions about what titles mean, and we’ll try to help you with that in this piece.
 

What is the difference between an assistant professor and an associate professor?

Academic hierarchy differs throughout the world, even within the English-speaking world and in different institutions. However, the main difference is that an associate professor is a higher rank than an assistant professor. Associate professors usually have tenure while assistant professors do not.
 

Academia and Rankings

In the United States and many other countries, anyone who teaches at a university might be referred to informally as a “professor.”

The vast majority of those people have PhDs in their field, but this is not 100% true.

Graduate students may teach some courses at a university, but when they do, they are usually referred to as teaching assistants or something similar.

Some people teach at colleges and universities with just a master’s degree. Some may have completed coursework in a PhD but have not completed a dissertation.

Other people have extensive experience in areas such as politics, business or international affairs and may be invited to be “visiting professors” or to teach full time.

In general, people do not enter a university environment as a full professor.

They need to move through a hierarchy that, in its simplest and most straightforward form, goes from assistant professor to associate professor to full professor.

In many fields, when “assistant” is affixed before the title, it can mean that the job includes working closely with a person who has the full title.

For example, the assistant director of either a company or a film would work closely with the director as a kind of assistant.

This is not the case with the rank of “assistant professor.” This position involves working independently.

While the goal of most people who enter academia is to eventually become a full professor, some professors may have a satisfying career without advancing beyond the rank of associate professor.

How difficult it is to advance to full professor from assistant and how many full professors are in each department varies according to the institution and the discipline.
 

Tenure

Tenure is an important element of job security and academic freedom.

When a professor has tenure, they can only be removed from their position in extraordinary circumstances.

In order to get tenure, a professor has to teach for a certain amount of time.

They also need to engage in research and serve on committees.

The length of time it takes to get tenure is usually around seven years.

Therefore, a person would usually serve as an assistant professor for around seven years, and then they could apply for tenure. Getting tenure would be part of their promotion to associate professor.

Keep in mind that this is usually how tenure and rank are related in the United States but not always.

When someone is working as a professor at a university with the intention of obtaining tenure, it is called being on the “tenure track.” It is also possible to be an assistant professor without being on the tenure track.
 

Other duties of assistant and associate professors

Professors have other important duties.

Two of them are supervising doctoral students and voting about who will receive tenure.

In general, the latter is only open to associate and full professors. At some institutions, only full professors are permitted to vote.

Assistant and associate professors may or may not be allowed to supervise doctoral students depending on the institution. They may also sit on doctoral committees and supervise teaching or research assistants.

Assistant professors need to conduct research and publish regularly in academic journals to increase the likelihood that they will receive tenure.

Associate professors and full professors are expected to continue researching and writing articles throughout their career.
 

“Assistant professor” as an entry-level position

You may sometimes see “assistant professor” referred to as an “entry-level position.” This is because it is the level at which a person is generally hired as a full-time faculty member who is also in the process of obtaining tenure.

However, there are other instructional faculty who are below the assistant professor. For example, some institutions use “adjunct instructor” or “adjunct professor” to refer to someone who is only teaching on a part-time and temporary basis.

“Instructor” is another name for someone who is teaching at a university without having a tenure-track position, and these would generally be below the assistant professor.

Therefore, “assistant professor” may technically be an “entry-level” position, but it is not necessarily the lowest-ranking teaching position at the institution.

Furthermore, an adjunct professor could move up to the position of assistant professor and eventually become tenured.

However, a person who has finished their doctoral degree would tend to look for a position as an assistant professor and not an adjunct because it pays more, offers benefits and carries more job security.
 

Outside of the United States

In other English-speaking countries, you can generally rely on the same hierarchy in which an associate professor is a higher rank than assistant professor if these terms are used.

However, most other countries do not use these exact same titles.

For example, many English-speaking countries or individual institutions use “lecturer” and “senior lecturer” instead of “assistant professor” and “associate professor,” respectively. This is common in the United Kingdom.

In Australia and New Zealand, while the rank of associate professor is commonly used to denote the level of academic that is just below full professor, institutions in these countries usually do not have the rank of assistant professor.

Instead, a professor would advance from assistant lecturer to lecturer to senior lecturer and then to associate professor.

This is also the case in some other countries, such as Ireland and Nigeria.

Canada generally follows the same hierarchy as the United States.

In general, you can make some broad assumptions if you know that someone is an assistant or an associate professor.

For the latter title in particular, you can generally be sure that the person is just below the rank of full professor.

You can also be fairly sure that an assistant professor is at an earlier place in their career.

However, in order to be certain, you would need to know the specifics of both the country and the institution.