Job Description of a Tenure Track Assistant Professor

by Carol Poster, studioD

Full-time faculty at North American universities is divided into three ranks: assistant, associate and full professors. All three ranks are referred to as tenure-track or tenure-stream faculty, meaning they're eligible for or have been granted tenure, a type of guaranteed employment from which one can only be fired for due cause. Tenure-track faculty are considered permanent members of the university, and are distinguished from contingent faculty, including visiting professors, adjuncts, lecturers, instructors, graduate instructors and teaching assistants, by the permanent nature of tenure-track employment.

Assistant Professor Rank

Assistant professors are untenured faculty who are on the tenure track; they are sometimes called probationary faculty. The probationary period or tenure clock normally lasts five or six years for assistant professors recently graduated from doctorate programs, though recently hired professors with prior teaching or professional experience may have years in other positions credited as part of their probationary period. During probation, most assistant professors undergo a third-year or pre-tenure review, during which the university evaluates whether they have demonstrated adequate progress toward tenure to be awarded a second three-year pre-tenure contract or their contract will not be renewed. At the end of the probationary period, faculty is reviewed for tenure and promotion to associate professor. Normally, tenure and promotion are awarded simultaneously, while strong teachers with weak research records may be granted tenure without promotion. Most universities operate on an "up or out" system; faculty not awarded tenure don't have their appointments renewed at the end of their final probationary year.


At research-intensive universities, teaching is usually designated as 40 percent of an assistant professor's workload, while at teaching-oriented institutions it may comprise up to 60 percent of a typical professor's workload. Teaching encompasses all activities that directly facilitate student learning, including the contact hours spent in the classroom, office hours, class preparation, grading, answering student email, student advising, evaluating and making available course materials, facilitating e-learning and related duties. At universities with significant graduate programs, supervising graduate students and serving on thesis committees is an important part of teaching, as is supervising teaching assistants in large lecture courses.

Research and Creativity

Research, which may include creative as well as traditional scholarly activities, can comprise 20 to 40 percent of an assistant professor's workload, though it can range as high as 100 percent in certain disciplines where many faculty members are supported purely by grant money. The research component of an assistant professor position normally includes scholarly publication, attending academic conferences and obtaining grants. More senior scholars often take leadership roles in scholarly associations and act as editors, board members and referees for grant-giving organizations, academic presses and scholarly journals. Assistant professors usually start participating in such leadership roles on a small scale during their probationary period, but devote less time to such activities than tenured faculty.


An important part of assistant professors' jobs is service to their institutions. University service involves membership in departmental, college-level and university committees, attending departmental meetings, student recruitment and processing routine paperwork such as filling out reports, answering email, participating in surveys and voting in university elections. Assistant professors rarely serve in major departmental leader positions such as department chair, program director, assistant chair or director of graduate or undergraduate studies, though advanced assistant professors occasionally do take on these roles. Common forms of service for assistant professors include judging student paper contests, serving on hiring committees, advising student organizations, serving on graduate admissions committees, participating in curriculum review or revision, and attending or organizing lecture and seminar series.

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