One reason for earning a PhD is to pursue a career as a faculty member at a four-year college or university or a two-year institution. There are many kinds of colleges and universities in the United States. An institution of higher education may be public or private (or a little of both, like Pitt); secular or religiously-affiliated; designed to serve students in a particular region or state or nationwide; devoted in different proportions to undergraduate teaching, graduate teaching, and research; devoted to technological degrees or to the liberal arts. A faculty member’s work will vary tremendously depending on the institution at which he or she is employed and the nature of the position. For example, faculty members in research universities are likely to teach fewer courses each semester (perhaps two) because they are expected to spend time supervising graduate students and working toward scholarly publications. Faculty members in colleges without substantial endowments may teach more courses each semester (perhaps four) but may not have graduate students to supervise, and they may not be expected to do as much research. Even at institutions with heavy teaching loads, however, faculty members are usually expected to be involved in research and publication.
Tenured Faculty
When most students envision careers in college teaching, they usually have in mind ending up in a position as a tenured faculty member. Tenure is the contractual guarantee that a faculty member cannot be fired for reasons that might constitute (or disguise) an infringement of academic freedom. An academic position that leads to the possibility of tenure is called a tenure-track or tenure-stream position. An assistant professorship is a common entry-level tenure-stream position. Usually, an assistant professor works for six years (undergoing some sort of intermediate contract renewal procedure) before coming up for tenure. An assistant professor preparing to be reviewed for tenure must typically submit scholarly publications, teaching evaluations and teaching materials, and evidence of administrative service. The candidate receives tenure if the department and the higher levels of administration all concur that the candidate’s record meets the standards for scholarship, teaching, and service that have been set by the department and/or the institution. These standards are usually somewhat abstract or variable, however, so the pursuit of tenure can be an anxious process. Candidates who fail to receive tenure at an institution usually continue to work in their position for an additional year, time that allows them to seek another position.
Professorship
At most institutions, an assistant professor who receives tenure is promoted to the position of associate professor with tenure. A further promotion to professor (sometimes called ‘full professor,’ since assistant and associate professors may use “Professor” as a title) may be sought by associate professors whose scholarship, teaching, and service attain certain standards set by the department and/or the institution.
Non-Tenure Stream Faculty
In recent decades, however, the number of tenured positions in the U. S. has been dropping as colleges and universities have come to rely increasingly on untenured (also called “non-tenure-stream,” or NTS) faculty members. NTS faculty members are may be full-time or part-time faculty members, and the positions for which they are hired can be named in various ways: NTS faculty members can be called lecturers, senior lecturers, visiting lecturers, adjuncts, or part-time faculty members, for instance. There are a variety of NTS positions available in American universities. Some of these positions offer reasonably good compensations, benefits, and working conditions. Many more do not. The increase in NTS positions (many of which are occupied by academics who have earned PhDs and made significant achievements as scholars and teachers) is one reason why there are fewer tenured and tenure-stream positions in American institutions of higher education. Decreased funding of state-supported institutions by state legislatures has in turn led to the increase in NTS positions. Academics in the humanities have also debated whether graduate schools should admit (and therefore produce) fewer PhDs so that a higher proportion of PhD-earners are likely to enter tenure-stream positions. However, a graduate program that hopes to offer a range of graduate courses needs to admit enough graduate students to populate the courses.
As a result of all these factors, the job market for recent PhDs in English has been notoriously difficult for several decades, although it has been improving slightly over the past few years. The competition for jobs is intense, and many candidates who are hired have been on the job market for more than one year since receiving their PhD. According to recent reports, schools that are hiring typically receive well over one hundred applications for any given opening.
If you would like to get some sense of the job market in particular areas of English studies, consult the websites of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Modern Language Association (MLA) for studies and reports they have sponsored about academic hiring. The 1997 MLA Report of the Committee on Professional Employment, available at the MLA website, is a sobering study of academic employment in language and literature departments.