Here, I will bring up issues regarding the faculty and
especially the differences that are seen within each system. This includes:
responsibility, employment, evaluation, promotion and expectations. As in the
other posts, I will first describe each university separately and then make a
final discussion and as before, the comparison and description is limited to
the area of chemical engineering or the related area. With faculty means, the employed
persons that are supposed to perform both teaching and research together with
other task that is beneficial for the University such as being active in
different committees and councils.
UC Berkeley
General information about research faculty
The research faculty is, in most cases, given 9 month salaries from the university but each individual has the possibility to attract funding (research funding) from agencies or companies to fill up the extra 3 months (summer). The research faculty is expected to teach one course each semester unless other duties (such as chair, dean, vice dean etc.).
The first research faculty position is assistant professor.
This position allows, encourage and demand you to start your own research group
directly. There are no conditions of previous courses in supervision of PhD
students or experience as co-supervisor. This is the position you enter after
finalizing the PhD and the post-doc sessions. Thus, it might be difficult to
learn directly what is expected and how to manage the different tasks.
Therefore, the CBE department has, as a rule, to assign a mentor to each new
assistant professor. The role of the mentor is to explain and give advice in
matters regarding, grants, proposals and teaching requirements. After about 2.5
to 3 years, there is an evaluation where the research faculty decided whether
or not to recommend a tenure (the vote is either likely tenure or not likely
tenure). Most will receive a not likely tenure vote which mainly indicates that
the amount and quality of the research is not enough yet to reach the associate
professor level. This is only a recommendation and has nothing to do with the
future possibilities of reaching an associate professor position but should be
viewed upon as a chance to get feedback of what is needed.
After the full period (totally 5 years) there is a thorough
evaluation regarding if the assistant professor should be appointed tenure or
not. This evaluation is made in several steps and finally ends up at the vice
chancellor’s table where the formal decision is made. It includes both teaching
and research. At UC Berkeley they have decided to not have the tenure in competition
which means that as long as you are progressing according to or better than
expected there will be a tenure position. With other words, the department
cannot hire an assistant professor if there is not a tenure position available
in the end. Typically, the department is offering money for a couple of PhD
students (4-5 years of PhD research), summer salary the first two years,
together with some funds for starting a laboratory.
The level of associate professor means that you have
achieved a tenured position. It is no longer possible to apply for initiation
grants from the agencies and all applications are in competition with other
researchers which makes it more challenging but on the other hand there has
been time to test and develop ideas during the previous position which should
be a solid foundation.
After the associate professor is the full professor. To get
a promotion as full professor you must be evaluated again and the focus now is
on international impact. You also have to have made several commitments to the
university during your years such as serving on the university senate (it is
the structure that handles all academic questions such as admission of
students, change in course curriculum, promotions etc.). Besides, the
evaluation on teaching is also made (what contributions have been made such as
text books).
At each level, there has to be an evaluation of your performance
at least every 5th year but preferable it should take no longer than
3 years in between. It should be noted
that within each of these positions, there are steps (steps on a ladder) which
indicate how far you have reached in that category (it is also closely connected
to the salary).
University of Borås
I will use the English translation for the different positions
but I will give a corresponding name in parenthesis that will match the UC Berkeley
nomenclature. The first position within the faculty is the lecturer (corresponding
to assistant professor). This is an appointment for 4 years and the intention
is to evolve into an independent researcher and to get teaching experience. During
this period, the researcher is not allowed to act as a principal supervisor for
PhD students but is encouraged to act as co-supervisor. It is, however,
possible to be the main applicant on applications for funds. Typically, no
extra funds are associated with the position so in order to attract students in
the area fund must be collected from foundations or companies.
Next step in the academic hierarchy is the senior lecturer.
This position is a tenure position and should be preceded by an open advertisement
whereby the area of the position is clearly designated. This means that, the university
(in reality the faculty) agrees upon a research area that would fit (and match)
the current ongoing research and to
appoint the best person in that area both with respect to research abilities
but also with respect to teaching abilities. Not even a senior lecturer can
supervise their own PhD students, you must first undergo a second evaluation to
something we call docent (in the UK it is reader) where the focus is upon research
achievements (international publications) and it is not a separate position but
more to be regarded as a degree which allows to you to be the principal
supervisor. This evaluation also considers that mandatory courses in
supervision are passed.
Marching up in the ranks, leads to the associate professor’s
level. Here, the demand for research is the same as for the docent level but
additional demands are set for teaching and supervision. The final step is the
full professor. To reach this level, the person must show original and
innovative research at high international level.
Comparison
There are some distinct differences between the two systems.
One of the first things is the responsibility that is given the assistant
professors at Cal. They are supposed to manage project leading; supervision,
grant proposals and teaching at the same time without, in some cases, any
previous experience. This will be tough. It may also strike back to the students,
who will have an inexperienced supervisor where there could be all sorts of mistakes
like micromanagement or impossible project ideas. Hopefully, the evaluation will
consider these issues before assigning the position. In the UB system, the assistant
professor can do their own research but only co-supervise PhD students, which
make it a little safer for the students. However, it imposes other difficulties
such as showing independence when your students have another principal
supervisor.
Another important difference is the security of employment.
At Cal, there is a tenure position waiting if you perform good enough but at UB
the position it is not certain that there will be a position available at the
time when the assistant professor are ready for the promotion (and besides the
promotion will be in competition to other applicants). In most cases, though,
there is a tendency of securing a position in the area if the candidate show
good capabilities but nothing is certain (in the end it depends on available
funding).
Higher up in the hierarchy, there are, in theory, the same
type of evaluation for promotion and merit increase. However, a difference is
that at Cal there is a continuous evaluation of the performance with regular
interval (these are made for merit increase and basically determines the
salary) but no such evaluation is found at UB where the salary increase will be
based on the yearly communication with the nearest head.