As a graduate student, I always felt a bit guilty about admitting it. As a postdoctoral fellow, I was increasingly sure it was true. And now, with the safety net of tenure, I can wholeheartedly confess: I have always enjoyed teaching more than research.
When I was a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience trying to figure out the next step of my career, I was passionate about teaching and science communication, but also wanted job stability. I thought maybe I could work at a primarily undergraduate university, assuming I managed to land a position in a city where my partner could also find work. But the chances of finding that kind of job, in the right kind of place, seemed slim.
I felt like I was dreaming up an imaginary position that combined teaching and scholarly work in a university setting — until someone sent me a tenure-track job ad for a “teaching professor.” My jaw hit the desk.
In today’s faculty job market, every candidate is confronted with a confusing array of academic positions. Some are oriented toward research and others toward teaching, some are on the tenure track and plenty are not. But what I had stumbled upon was a tenure-track teaching position, a type of faculty job that is increasingly common at big universities, comprising about 8 percent of full-time faculty members in Canada and 5 to 10 percent on the campuses of the University of California system.
As soon as I found out about this kind of job, I knew I wanted it — badly. I stretched my network of friends and colleagues to arrange phone calls with current “teaching professors” who shared their insights about the position. Those phone calls helped me land a tenure-track post in 2018 at UC-San Diego, where I earned tenure in 2022 as an associate teaching professor of neurobiology. My goal in writing this is to convey the same hidden knowledge that I received about this burgeoning faculty career path.
What is a “teaching professor”? Teaching-focused roles have a variety of names, including “teaching professor,” “professor of teaching,” and (the less-than-catchy) “lecturer with the potential for security of employment” (LPSOE). Even jobs with the same title can vary in their degree of job security. Navigating through the diverse titles is just the first step in trying to understand what these roles actually entail.
Here, I’ll use “teaching professor” to describe jobs that include a significant amount of college teaching and a potential for job security.
In recruiting for these tenure-track jobs, some universities are looking almost exclusively for a candidate to teach, while others also want someone who can direct discipline-based education research or fill a leadership role in the department. Whatever the position’s particular mix of teaching, research, and service, the priority in hiring is almost always the department’s teaching needs.
Some science departments hire faculty members with formal training in an education field (often a doctorate or postdoctoral work) and embed them in the department. These faculty members — coined “science faculty with education specialities” (SFES), and often on the tenure track — teach and work on a variety of educational projects, such as curricular reform.
While the typical tenure track at a large university evaluates people mostly on their research, faculty members on the teaching tenure track have different job expectations. Besides teaching, we focus on developing pedagogical methods and understanding how students learn. We serve on campus committees alongside our research-focused colleagues. In the UC system, teaching takes up about two thirds of our time. The remainder is devoted to service and scholarly work.
The most difficult part of the job to define is “scholarly work” (or, as the UC system labels this, “professional achievement and activity”). For some, including myself, that means developing and publishing innovative curricula so that others can adapt the materials for their own courses. Some teaching professors run education-research groups (and advise trainees) that investigate various classroom practices or beliefs.
Across academe, my counterparts on the teaching tenure track are changing the way we teach chemistry, investigating faculty conceptions of student diversity, developing new grading systems, identifying gender differences in computer-science courses, and quantifying the amount and impact of student-professor interactions. Some of us partner with other organizations or obtain external research grants to do things like run intervention or outreach programs in STEM fields. One of my colleagues worked with science educators at Cabrillo National Monument on a project using art to teach and increase representation in the sciences. I co-direct a National Institutes of Health program that trains, mentors, and funds diverse transfer students as they enter neuroscience.
The possibilities for this kind of work are essentially endless and can be entirely driven by your interests.
Applying and interviewing. Preferred qualifications for teaching professors vary — as they do with research-focused jobs — across departments and universities. Most search committees will be on the lookout for candidates who have the following:
- A Ph.D., most likely in the department’s discipline, not in education (although there are exceptions)
- Teaching experience (ideally as an instructor of record)
- Research plans (if not a record of scholarship) in the area of teaching and learning
- Work experience in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion
When I applied, I had to submit statements about my teaching philosophy, scholarship (in education), neuroscience background, and diversity. At the time, the academic playing cards in my hand included a neuroscience Ph.D., three published neuroscience papers (including one as first author), and a little over a year of postdoctoral research.
I had the neurobiology background that was paramount for the position, which would involve creating a new laboratory course in the department. The weakest part of my application, however, was my teaching experience — I had taught only one college course as the instructor of record, although I also had a yearlong teaching fellowship at a high school, a certificate from a graduate teaching course, and experience developing a short module at a local high school. I didn’t have any education publications, and I had minimal experience doing scholarship on teaching and learning. And so, I spent a significant amount of time before my interview reading education-research papers and preparing my own research plan.
The interview process also varies, but you can expect a virtual screening interview to identify a short list of candidates, followed by a two-day interview that includes some form of job talk or lecture as well as meetings. It’s vital to use your meetings with potential colleagues to understand the role of teaching-focused faculty members in the department. Before the campus interview, consider asking to meet with staff members and students, too, who can speak to the status of undergraduate education at the institution.
To give you a flavor of how the campus interview for a teaching professorship differs from the usual process, here is what the campus visit includes in my department:
- A teaching demonstration. This is a full lecture, designed for a typical undergraduate audience but presented to a group of ardent faculty members. This should be the best lecture you ever give — complete with learning objectives, active-learning activities, an understanding of students’ prior knowledge, and ideas for assessment.
- A “chalk talk.” This has several components, depending on the needs of the search. The committee will likely ask you to describe your plans for scholarly as well as DEI work. Even if — and especially if — you do not have experience doing education research, you should prepare a thoughtful plan for the kind of work you plan to do. Treat this portion like a research job talk, and think creatively about how you can translate your discipline-specific knowledge into education work. Imagine getting the job, and ask yourself, “What would I do in this position?” Then clearly articulate your plan to the search committee.
You will need to tailor your application materials to the exact position, department, and university. “It’s really incumbent upon you as an applicant to understand the local context,” says Mike Wilton, an assistant teaching professor in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at UC-Santa Barbara and a co-principal investigator on an NSF award to advance equitable hiring of teaching-focused faculty. “At a specific institution, you might be spending 95 percent of your time lecturing, or running laboratory courses, or anything in between,” Wilton said, when I spoke to him about this piece.
Uncertain expectations for an evolving role. The variability in expectations for these positions can make it tricky to navigate the teaching tenure track. The lack of consensus on how to define a “good” teaching professor brings with it some stress and uncertainty as we each try to determine what counts toward tenure and promotion. As with any faculty job, it’s important to know whether the things you care about align with what matters to your department, university, and tenure committee.
There are also the kinds of difficulties that come whenever you create a new type of position in higher education: finding mentors, identifying people to write your recommendation letters, figuring out blurry responsibilities and rights. Eduardo (Lalo) Gonzalez-Niño, an assistant teaching professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at UC Santa Barbara, highlighted this in a recent email to me: “Although this is changing because of the formation of groups like the Tenure-Track Teaching Professor Network (T³PN), more work needs to be done to address these issues.”
Teaching professors, he noted, are more likely to do invisible work, given our frequent and immersive contact with undergraduates and our expertise on teaching. “We are often asked [by students] to write letters of recommendation for different programs, scholarships, and opportunities — at a higher rate than other faculty,” Gonzalez-Niño said. “In many cases, we are also more likely to take on department roles related to DEI.”
On the other hand, given the newness of these tracks, there is also an opportunity to directly shape them. “It’s exciting to be a professor of teaching, because of the flexibility and opportunity to really excel and be a leader,” Wilton said.
If you’re someone who wants to work in a university environment and conduct research, yet spend the bulk of your time thinking about teaching and learning, the teaching track is worth a look.
Personally, I love the opportunity to work alongside some of the best minds in neuroscience while spending most of my time training the next generation to someday be those minds. I’m thankful that I can apply for grants if I want to — and not because I need to in order to support my work. I appreciate flexible summers and the freedom to continue to pursue writing and outreach. I didn’t know about this job when I was in graduate school, but I’m glad I found it.
Note: This essay is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions and conclusions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the policies of the NSF.
