Assistant professor, associate professor, and professor are the three most common tenure track positions in universities across the United States and Canada. External versus senior positions can also distinguish tenure tracks. Although many other countries’ educational systems provide their faculty with a type of permanent job contract, tenure is traditionally applied to the position in North America.
Tenure is the extension of a faculty member’s permanent job offer, usually at a college or university. This type of job security is also awarded at different academic levels in some school systems, particularly in some U.S. states, but the traditional use of this type of permanent employment is in higher education. A professor who has been granted tenure cannot be fired the university unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as unusual misconduct.
Teachers in higher education are hired for tenure track or non-tenure track positions. The difference between the two types of jobs is that a non-tenure track hire has no expectation of receiving a permanent job offer from the university. Non-tenure track teachers can work at the school indefinitely on a year-to-year, at-will basis, but they are not eligible for a long-term contract.
The way a tenure eligible line is filled is the most basic distinction between the types of tenure track positions. When a college or university wants to add another tenured professor to an academic department, it either hires a recent PhD graduate and places him at the start of the tenure track pipeline, or it hires a tenured or up for tenure professor from another university. The second type of appointment is a senior hire, which puts the new faculty member in a tenured position without having to wait the standard five years for tenure review.
Assistant and associate professors are the most common positions for external tenure-eligible faculty. These are the traditional tenure track positions that lead to a tenure review and eventual designation as a fully tenured professor after approximately five years. Many other faculty titles are used at colleges and universities, such as adjunct professor and lecturer, but the tenure track designation is usually reserved for the title progression from assistant to associate to full professor.