Associate Professor
The appointment of an Associate Professor is a joint exercise of two employers: the college and the faculty/department. There are two basic types of associate professorship depending on the nature of the college association.
1. Associate Professorships with a tutorial fellowship
Most associate professorships are associated with a college tutorial fellowship. The associate professor’s teaching time will be split between duties for the University (undergraduate lectures, teaching masters and doctoral students etc) and duties for the college (tutorial ie very small group teaching and associated pastoral and administrative duties). The total salary is divided between the University and the college roughly proportionate to the split of duties between the two employers.
2. Associate Professorships without a tutorial fellowship (NTF)
Some associate professors do not hold a tutorial fellowship with their associated college, either because the college does not admit undergraduates, or because there is no undergraduate teaching in their particular subject area (eg Education). They receive 100% of their salary from the University in return for additional teaching and/or administrative duties in the department or faculty.
Professor
This is the senior academic grade at Oxford, equivalent to full professor in the USA. Professors are expected to take an academic leadership role within their department or faculty as well as more widely in the University and beyond. They concentrate on teaching masters and doctoral students but may give undergraduate lectures as well. They are always associated with a college but do not hold a tutorial fellowship, and 100% of their salary comes from the University. The majority of professorships (also known as “chairs”) are statutory, for example, they are permanent posts within the University’s staff structure, although occasionally a fixed-term professorship may be created in particular circumstances.
Titular Professorships
Particularly distinguished academics and researchers may be awarded the title of full professor, either in a regular exercise for the conferment of titles, or by the SAP as cases arise on recruitment or in between exercises. The award of the title does not change the post or the duties of the holder; it is simply a means of recognising an associate professor’s academic distinction.
