Please explain Tenured/Non-tenured Positions (Professor vs. Clinical Professor)

[Vivara]

Hi guys,

I thought I understood this, but I've become recently baffled.

Is it correct to say that in all (we'll say 90 per cent of) institutions, those with titles like: Professor of Clinical Medicine, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Assistant Clinical Professor, etc. are not on a tenure-track?

And those with titles such as Professor, Associate Professor, etc. are on a tenure-track?

If so, please explain to me this: how come nearly all of Columbia Psychiatry's Administration are on clinical tracks (except for Jeffrey Lieberman)?

Or how come all of Columbia/Cornell's EM Faculty seem to be on Clinical Tracks too?

Similarly, it seems many of the administration in Columbia's Neurology Department are on clinical tracks, despite many being involved in research.

So my questions are:

• Is it true that all these people above are on clinical tracks only?
  
• Is it safe to say that the goal of most physician's in academic medicine is to be on a clinical track?
  
• And that in institutions like Columbia, very few are on tenure tracks?

I honestly thought it was the goal of most physicians in academic medicine to be on a tenure track and eventually achieve it. Am I wrong?

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[Isoprop]

Though your generalization of titles is right, it's just a generalization. The only title that I would be pretty sure that the prof. was tenured is "full professor."

Tenure really doesn't apply to clinicians-educators. Except perhaps for the prestige factor, why would you want it? Academic clinicians don't rely completely on grant funding since they can see and bill patients. Tenure really matters for clinician-RESEACHERS.

So no, not every academic clinician wants or seeks tenured tracks. Particular clinician-educators.

 

[michaelrack]

You are confusing 2 different topics

1. Clinical track: less research than the standard track, is eligible for tenure. Full academic, but does more clinical activity, teaching, and administration than research.

2. Clinical asst prof, clinical assoc prof, clinical professore, etc. These are alternative terms for affiliate or adjunct faculty members- basically community docs who occasionally give a lecture to students/residents or do some other type of volunteer work for the medical school, usually not paid by the med school.

 

[michaelrack]

Tenure really doesn't apply to clinicians-educators. Except perhaps for the prestige factor, why would you want it?.

You are sometimes required to obtain tenure within a certain time period or leave

 

[Vivara]

Thanks for everyone's help, yet there still seems to be several conflicting posts here.

2. Clinical asst prof, clinical assoc prof, clinical professore, etc. These are alternative terms for affiliate or adjunct faculty members- basically community docs who occasionally give a lecture to students/residents or do some other type of volunteer work for the medical school, usually not paid by the med school.

You must be incorrect. If you look at my original post, how can virtually of of Columbia's neurology leadership be 'clinical assistant professors, professors of clinical neurology', etc.? They are not community docs and have extensive academic research interests. The same seems to go for the other links e.g. Columbia Psychiatry and Columbia/Cornell Emergency Medicine.

However, on second thought... maybe I am confusing things.

Is 'Assistant Clinical Professor of Neurology' the same as 'Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurology'?

What would be great is if someone took the time to figure out what's happening on the links and who's who and what's what because I, for the life of me, can't figure it out. Maybe someone with knowledge of Columbia and similar institutions could shed some light with the specific examples as in my OP.

Thanks again guys.

EDIT: Also, I have found several links like this one which suggest the opposite of what you said i.e. that clinical track and tenure-track are separate and distinct. It even goes as far as saying that they are not even part of the same promotional ladder and that you cannot go from being a clinical faculty member to a tenure-track member without being selected during a national search.

 

[Baseball8675309]

My take on it,

Non-tenure = probably better professor because they can be fired otherwise. 😳

Tenure = Might be a good professor, but might be a lousy or abusive one. Either way, its ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO FIRE THEM. 😡 so lets hope your at a school that has the former.

 

[michaelrack]

I guess there is a lot of institutional variability. what I described is how I have typically seen things done. Looking at the Columbia website, I am confused.

 

[Lokhtar]

The titles are not standardized, neither are the procedures for tenure. In a traditional sense (e.g academic, not clinical), you have 'assistant professor' which is tenure track. After a period of 5-7 years, you are evaluated (generally based on your research and teaching, with emphasis placed on the former at most PhD granting universities) and either offered tenure and given the rank 'associate professor', or required to leave. Some institutions tenure a high percentage of their assistant professors, others make it almost impossible to get tenure (sometimes less than 10%). Many positions are not tenure track - 'Lecturer', 'Research Professor', 'Adjunct Professor' are typically not tenure track. They are hired for a specific reason and paid a salary (for teaching, if you're a lecturer, or research for a research professor - though for research typically you are paid out of your own grant). Generally you make more money as non tenure track than tenure track, but you can be fired at any time.

However, these titles often are different depending on the university - at some places, you can be associate professor without tenure or an assistant professor with tenure (rare). The only constant generally is that if you are full 'professor' - you're almost always tenured.

Clinical professors are even more varied, because they can fall into either track (tenure or non tenure). It usually depends on how much institutional administrative responsibilities they have in addition to clinical care. Generally, the more education/lecture/administrative things you need to do, the more chance you have of being on a tenure track. The reason being that the more non patient care related responsibility, the less money you typically make, so you get tenure track or tenure as a reward for helping the institution. However, often the titles are the same - e.g you can be hired as a clinical assistant professor and be tenure track (e.g like an assistant professor) or a clinical assistant professor and be non tenure track (e.g like an affiliate professor). Often you can have the same title even at the same institution and be on different tracks!


So moral of the story: look at the institution and look at their policies on tenure. Usually these things are published somewhere on the website. You can't go by titles.

 

[surg]

OK, so you probably picked the most bizarre place to make an example of:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/vpaa/handbook/instruction.html#tenureappointments

the process appears variable with people in clinical tracks not necessarily having to go up for tenure, etc. This is complicated by the professional track and for people who are affiliated with columbia, but are at hospitals, etc.


However, to address your first post: it is not unusual to see large proportions of faculty in medical centers to be non-tenure clinical track. What they call these people can vary substantially. This is often a bone of contention between the academic faculty on the main campus and the medical campus, as most non-medical center departments (outside of the law and business school) don't have the ability to keep substantial numbers of non-tenure track faculty around for funding reasons.

Most medical centers have faculty of a few flavors on their main campus: research-oriented faculty with only a modicum of clinical activity, clinical oriented faculty with little to no research activity, and then sometimes you will find a hybrid track - e.g. education or some from of a clinical research faculty.

As far as being able to tell what is what,
rank without any appellations (e.g. Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor) or with merely the name of the specialty (e.g. Associate Professor of Surgery), is typically a tenure track position.

<rank> of clinical <specialty> (e.g. Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery) can be either depending on the institution. I have seen this to mean that they are tenure track of the department which they call "Clinical Surgery" to indicate that this is a clinical field. I have also seen this as a hybrid track, I have also seen this be a pure clinical track.

Clinical <rank> of <specialty> tends to be more likely to be a non-tenure track, but again exceptions abound.

Adjunct anything is almost never tenure track.

Oh. and yes. while tenure means appointment for life, those appointments don't have to come with a paycheck.... http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...-professor-daniel-kirschenbaum-robert-kreiser


FYI: I found the columbia website by google site:columbia.edu tenure process then following the links to the academic affairs office. I suspect virtually any university's process could be found via a similar search strategy.

 

[IlDestriero]

We have 3 tracks.
Tenure track is usually >50% (often >75%) research time. There is brutal publish or perish promotion structure and you are expected to be very academically productive. You have to find funding to support yourself or you're only going to make <50% of your salary. This is a "real" research pathway. Few faculty are on this track. Their title is Professor of Anesthesiology. Their academic time is fully protected.
There is a hybrid track. This is not a tenure track. They do 75-80% clinical time and make a full salary. Their academic days are scheduled, but not protected, and they can be "called back" to provide clinical duty. They also have a brutal publish or perish requirement and are expected to be reasonably productive. This is actually a dangerous path, as you will be fired if you are not productive and your time is not guaranteed off. Much of the research work is done after hours, at home and on weekends. We have many people on this path. Their title would be Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology.
The last path is purely clinical. They have 100% clinical responsibility and get paid 100% salary. The majority are on this path. There is no academic productivity requirement and any publications, lectures, etc do not aid your promotion. Promotion is solely based on teaching scores and clinical excellence. They have the same title as the hybrid track. We also get some non protected "academic" time and are often given administrative responsibilities. Someone has to do the admin work, and it frees the research people up to pursue their research.
In all of the tracks you are evaluated on your teaching scores. There are set and rigid cut offs for promotion. If you don't exceed the cut off, you will not be presented for promotion, and if you don't get promoted in your promotion window in a research path, you will be fired.
We have one guy who has no chance for promotion. He's a dead man walking. If I were him, I'd have already left.

 

[Vivara]

Thank you all for your help, I understand it now.

OK, so you probably picked the most bizarre place to make an example of:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/vpaa/handbook/instruction.html#tenureappointments

the process appears variable with people in clinical tracks not necessarily having to go up for tenure, etc. This is complicated by the professional track and for people who are affiliated with columbia, but are at hospitals, etc.

Indeed, as it says at that link, there are basically three types (there are actually more but they're used infrequently) at Columbia:

TENURE-TRACK

Research Faculty: Titled; Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor etc. (also Professor of Neurology, etc.)

Clinical Faculty: Titled; Assistant Professor of Clinical Surgery, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, etc.

NOT TENURE-TRACK

Clinical Faculty: Titled; Clinical Professor of Surgery, Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology, Clinical Professor of Medicine, etc.

However, to address your first post: it is not unusual to see large proportions of faculty in medical centers to be non-tenure clinical track. What they call these people can vary substantially. This is often a bone of contention between the academic faculty on the main campus and the medical campus, as most non-medical center departments (outside of the law and business school) don't have the ability to keep substantial numbers of non-tenure track faculty around for funding reasons.

Thanks, that makes sense.

There is a hybrid track. This is not a tenure track. They do 75-80% clinical time and make a full salary. Their academic days are scheduled, but not protected, and they can be "called back" to provide clinical duty. They also have a brutal publish or perish requirement and are expected to be reasonably productive. This is actually a dangerous path, as you will be fired if you are not productive and your time is not guaranteed off. Much of the research work is done after hours, at home and on weekends. We have many people on this path. Their title would be Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology.

Yikes, this just goes to show the variability in the titles as Lokhtar and surg said. In Columbia, this type of hybrid seems to be tenure-track if I read the document linked-to correctly. I don't understand how you can be fired for not publishing yet they never reward you with some security. Seems unfair to me.

In all of the tracks you are evaluated on your teaching scores. There are set and rigid cut offs for promotion. If you don't exceed the cut off, you will not be presented for promotion, and if you don't get promoted in your promotion window in a research path, you will be fired.
We have one guy who has no chance for promotion. He's a dead man walking. If I were him, I'd have already left.

You do not make it sound like fun to work at your institution, but thanks so much for your help.

Thanks everyone. I searched and searched the forum and there was not even a single thread on this topic... I'm surprised it didn't cross anyone else's mind. But anyway, if it does in the future, hopefully they'll get a grasp of it from here!

 

[typhoonegator]

This is an important issue to bring to light, as it is something you need to think about when choosing a real job after training. These tracks are different at every institution, sometimes very slightly and maddeningly different, and can be a big deal as you try to advance you career. Some have to do with university philosophy, some with the standing of the medical school in relation to the university, some with the structure of the hospital in relation to the medical school, and some are archaic and/or arbitrary.

At large universities, there are often roadblocks placed by the traditional faculty (rightfully so) to prevent medical school and hospital "faculty" from growing like weeds and supplanting their voice in the university. A physics department might have 10 tenure-track faculty, but a division of endocrinology within a department of medicine might have 10 people with labs and NIH funding that feel they are just as eligible for tenure. The university has to maintain some sense of balance, and so they create these distinctions in their medical faculty. It all makes good sense, but you just have to understand the rules from the get-go or you might have a hard time. While the clinician-scientist rules tend to be similar from institution to institution, clinician-educator or pure-clinician tracks can vary wildly depending on what the institution has decided to reward, and this can have profound implications on your career advancement.

 

[IlDestriero]

You do not make it sound like fun to work at your institution, but thanks so much for your help.
Thanks everyone. I searched and searched the forum and there was not even a single thread on this topic... I'm surprised it didn't cross anyone else's mind. But anyway, if it does in the future, hopefully they'll get a grasp of it from here!

The publication rate/quality for the tenure track is significanty more than that of the hybrid track.
I love where I work, it's a leader in the field and the people that work here have to be on top of their game. The patient acuity is very high and the pathology is very varied, complex, and interesting. It's why I chose to work here. Promotion is definitely challenging, among the most demanding schools for research track people. However, the expectations are made clear before you're hired. We also bring the research track people in as clinical instructors for a couple years, at somewhat reduced pay, with protected time, to get their act together before the publish or perish clock starts ticking on them.

 

[michaelrack]

recently got some renewal paperwork from the U of MS. They have changed their titles. I am no longer a clinical asst prof.... the title has been changed to member of the Volunteer Adjunct faculty--- these are community docs who occasionally volunteer at the med school