What Does "Professor" Mean and How Do You Become One?

"Professor" is both a formal academic rank and a loose courtesy title. Formally, it usually refers to the senior rank (full professor) in a system that runs instructor/lecturer → assistant professor → associate professor → full professor. Informally in the US, anyone who teaches college courses may be called "professor" by students, even if their official title is lecturer, instructor, or adjunct. The path to a formal professorship normally requires a terminal degree (usually a PhD, though some fields accept a JD, MFA, or similar), a record of teaching and research, and a tenure-track appointment — but community colleges, adjunct pools, and non-tenure-track roles follow different rules.

The academic ranks, in order

Two things trip people up:

• "Professor" as a job vs. "professor" as a rank. A job posting for "Assistant Professor" is a professorial job; the person is not yet a full professor.
• Tenure-track vs. non-tenure-track. Tenure-track roles carry the expectation of eventual permanent employment and usually require research. Non-tenure-track roles (adjunct, lecturer, teaching professor) focus more on instruction and are renewed by contract.

What professors actually do

The job is usually described as three parts, weighted differently by institution:

• Teaching — designing courses, lecturing, running discussions, grading, holding office hours.
• Research or creative work — publishing, presenting, securing grants (heavy at research universities, lighter at teaching-focused colleges).
• Service — committee work, advising students, departmental administration, community engagement.

At community colleges, teaching and service typically dominate; at research universities, research output drives promotion. Andrew Hill's résumé illustrates the teaching-college pattern: his listed roles at St. Philip's College include directing a philosophy awards program, an ethics bowl team, and an intercollegiate civil disagreement partnership — service and co-curricular work alongside classroom teaching.

The typical path to becoming a professor

1. Bachelor's degree in the field (or a related one).
2. Master's degree — often sufficient for community college teaching, and sometimes the terminal credential for those roles.
3. Doctorate (PhD, EdD, JD, MFA, etc.) — the standard credential for university professor positions. Hill's listed education includes a Doctor of Jurisprudence alongside master's and bachelor's degrees, which fits philosophy-adjacent fields like ethics and law.
4. Postdoctoral or visiting positions — common in sciences and competitive humanities fields; not always required.
5. Tenure-track appointment as assistant professor.
6. Tenure and promotion to associate, then full professor, based on a review of teaching, research, and service.

Timeline from bachelor's to first tenure-track job is commonly 8–12 years, longer if postdocs or adjuncting intervene.

How the title is used differently

• US informal usage: students call any instructor "Professor," regardless of rank. This is normal and not an error.
• US formal usage: "Professor" alone usually means full professor; "Assistant Professor" and "Associate Professor" are stated in full.
• UK and Commonwealth: "Professor" is reserved for the equivalent of full professor; other faculty are lecturers, readers, or senior lecturers.
• Community colleges: many faculty hold the title "Professor" without a PhD and without research expectations. Hill's career spans St. Philip's College, Northwest Vista College, Tarrant County College, the University of Dallas, and St. Mary's University — a mix of community colleges and universities, which is a common teaching-focused career pattern.

Choosing a path: what to weigh

If your goal is teaching-focused work at a community college, a master's degree plus teaching experience may be enough, and the tenure process is usually lighter on research. If your goal is a research university professorship, a PhD, publications, and often postdoctoral work are effectively required. If you want to teach but not pursue tenure, non-tenure-track lecturer or adjunct roles are the entry point — but they typically offer less job security and lower pay, and should be evaluated on contract terms rather than the title alone.

For a concrete example: someone with a JD and an MA in philosophy, like Hill, can build a professor career around ethics, law, and interdisciplinary teaching rather than a traditional PhD research track — but that route depends on the hiring institution's credential requirements, which vary.