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A Lecturer, a person who gives lectures, is also an academic rank. In the United Kingdom a lecturer is usually the holder of a position at a university or similar institution, often an academic in an early career stage, one who leads research groups and supervises research students as well as teaching. However in the United States, Canada and other countries influenced by their educational systems, the term is used differently and generally denotes academics without tenure who teach full or part time but have few or no research responsibilities. In all English-language regions the term can also be used in its original meaning of "one who gives lectures", with or without academic qualifications. In the Church of England it can also mean a junior clergyman.

United Kingdom[link]

Academic usage[link]

A Lecturer in UK universities usually holds a permanent position that involves carrying out both teaching and research. After a number of years, a Lecturer may be promoted and become a Senior Lecturer. This position is below Reader and Professor.

It is also common for 'temporary lecturers' to be appointed to cover specific short-term teaching needs; these positions are by-definition non-permanent and non-renewable and should be clearly distinguished from permanent lectureships. Some universities also refer to graduate students or others who undertake ad-hoc teaching for a department as 'lecturers' or' sessional lecturers'. In Oxford and Cambridge colleges the term lectureship always refers to such temporary positions (to be distinguished from 'university lectureships', which are permanent); some are very low paid (as little as £6000 p.a. in 2011-12). This can cause confusion, especially for academics from outside the British system, since it is important to understand in exactly which sense the term lecturer is being employed.

The position of permanent Lecturer does not map easily onto the American system. In terms of responsibilities and recognition, the position of a newly appointed Lecturer is similar that of an assistant professor, but many Lecturers are experienced researchers with many publications and their position is more equivalent to that of an associate professor in the North American universities and international universities that are modelled on the US higher-education system.

Traditionally a Senior Lectureship reflected prowess in teaching or administration rather than research and was far less likely to lead direct to promotion to professor.^[1] In recent years a Senior Lecturer has also had to demonstrate strong research prowess as well as sound teaching and administrative skills, but promotion to Reader is usually necessary before promotion to Professor. However Senior Lecturers and Readers are paid on the same salary scale and in many departments Senior Lecturers are comparatively senior staff.

Most permanent lecturers in the UK have a doctorate and often have postdoctoral research experience.^[2] In many fields a doctorate is now the prerequisite although historically this was not the case and some academic positions could have been held on the basis of research merit alone without a higher degree.^[3]

The New Universities (that is universities that were until recently termed polytechnics) have a slightly different naming scheme than that just described, in which the grades are lecturer, senior lecturer and principal lecturer, with the last corresponding to senior lecturer in the pre-1992 institutions.^[4]

The University of Warwick decided in 2006^[5] to use the terminology assistant professor for lecturer, and associate professor for senior lecturers and readers. It was claimed that this was to make it easier to appoint staff from the US despite the fact that assistant professor generally refers to a non-tenured position in the US while at Warwick it is a permanent position (subject possibly to probation).,^[6] and that both readers and professors in the UK would correspond to professors in the US^[4] Nottingham has also adopted the same convention. At Reading job advertisements and academic staff web pages use the title associate professor, but the Ordinances of the university makes no reference to these titles and gives only procedures for conferring the traditional UK academic ranks.^[7]

Ecclesiastical usage[link]

A lecturer is typically an assistant curate serving in a Church of England parish. It is an historic title which has fallen out of regular use, but several churches in the UK still have clergy with the ancient title lecturer including many London churches, St. Mary's Church, Nottingham and Carlisle Cathedral.^{[citation needed]}

United States[link]

The term lecturer is used in various ways across different US institutions, sometimes causing confusion. On a generic level, however, the term broadly denotes one who teaches at a university but is not eligible for tenure and has no research obligations. At non-research schools the latter distinction is of course less meaningful, making the absence of tenure the main difference. Unlike the adjective "adjunct" (which can modify most academic titles, from professor to lecturer to instructor, etc.), the title of lecturer itself at most schools does not address the issue of full-time v. part-time status. Lecturers almost always have at least a masters degree and quite often a doctorate. Sometimes the title is used as an equivalent-alternative to instructor but schools that utilize both titles tend to provide relatively more advancement potential to their lecturers^{[citation needed]}.

It is becoming increasingly common for major research universities to hire full-time lecturers, whose responsibilities are primarily undergraduate education, especially for introductory/survey courses that involve large groups of students. These tend to be the courses that tenure-track faculty do not prefer to teach, and are unnecessarily costly for them to do so (at their comparatively higher salary rates). When a lecturer is part-time, there is little practical distinction from an adjunct professor, since neither has the prestige of being on the tenure-track. For full-time lecturers, many institutions now incorporate the role quite formally with performance reviews, promotional tracks, administrative service responsibilities, and many faculty privileges (e.g. voting, use of resources, etc.)^{[citation needed]}.

One emerging alternative to the use of full-time lecturers at research-heavy institutions is to create a parallel professorship track that's focused on teaching, which may or may not offer tenure, with a title series such as teaching professor. This would be analogous to how some universities have research-only faculty tracks with title series' such as "Research Professor/Scientist/Scholar."^{[citation needed]}

It should also be noted, however, that the title is sometimes, paradoxically, used in just the opposite sense: in some institutions, a lecturer especially "Distinguished Lecturer" may also refer to a position similar to emeritus professor. Also, in some schools it's a temporary post for visiting academics of considerable prominence—e.g. a famous writer may serve for a term or a year, for instance. When confusion arose about Barack Obama's status on the law faculty at the University of Chicago, the institution stated that although his title was "Senior Lecturer," that school actually uses that title for notable people such as federal judges and politicians who are deemed of high prestige but simply lack sufficient time to commit to a traditional tenure-track position.^[8]

Australia[link]

In Australia, the term lecturer may be used informally to refer to anyone who conducts lectures at a university or elsewhere, but formally refers to a specific academic rank. The academic ranks in Australia are similar to those in the UK but there is one additional rank. The academic levels in Australia are Associate Lecturer (academic level: A), Lecturer (B), Senior Lecturer (C), Associate Professor (D), and Professor (E).^{[citation needed]}

Unlike in the US, even relatively senior academic staff are referred to as lecturers. Generally Australian senior lecturers (level C) are considered equivalent to associate professors in North America because it usually entails tenure. A very small number of Australian universities have most recently begun to bring academic titles - and perceived status - more into line with the United States. Consequently they have replaced the Australian term associate lecturer with lecturer, lecturer with assistant professor, and senior lecturer with associate professor.^[9]

India[link]

In India one can appear for interviews for a post of a lecturer after passing the competitive exam of National Eligibility Test conducted by the University Grants Commission.

Other countries[link]

In other countries usage may vary unpredictably. For example, in Poland the related term lektor is a term used for a teaching-only position, generally for teaching foreign languages.

In France the title maître de conférences ("Lecture Master") is the lowest academic rank.

In German-speaking countries the term Lektor historically denoted a teaching position below a professor, primarily responsible for delivering and organizing lectures. The contemporary equivalent is Dozent or Hochschuldozent. Nowadays the German term Lektor exists only in philology or modern-language departments at German-speaking universities, for positions that primarily involve teaching a foreign language.

In Norway a Lektor is an academic rank, usually reached after three or five years of education, which enables a teacher to lecture at Ungdomsskole (Secondary school) or Videregående skole (high school) level.

In South Korea the term "Gangsa" is the literal translation of "Part-time lecturer". A Gangsa is usually part-time, paid by the number of hours of teaching. No research or administrative obligation is attached. In most disciplines Gangsa is regarded as a first step in one's academic career. In Korea the tenure position started from "Full-time Lecturer". The tenure position in South Korea is composed of "Full-time Lecture(JunImGangSa)", "Assistant Professor(JoKyoSu)", "Associate Professor(BuKyosu)" and "Professor(KyoSu)". Therefore "Full-Time Lecturer" is the same position as "Assistant Professor" in other countries, including the USA.

In Sweden a Lektor is an academic rank similar to senior lecturer in Great Britain and Associate Professor in USA. The Lektor holds the position below Professor in rank.

See also[link]

• Academic rank
• Professor

Notes[link]

Eric Mazur
Eric Mazur
Born	(1954-11-14) November 14, 1954 (age 57) Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Residence	U.S.
Nationality	Dutch
Fields	Physics, Applied physics
Institutions	Harvard University
Alma mater	Leiden University (doctoral) Harvard University (postdoctoral)
Doctoral advisor	Jan Beenakker (doctoral) Nicolaas Bloembergen (postdoc)
Known for	Ultrasfast Phenomena Peer Instruction
Notable awards	Presidential Young Investigator Award (1988) Esther Hoffman Beller Award (2009) Millikan Medal (2009)

Eric Mazur (b. November 14, 1954) is a prominent physicist and educator at Harvard University. Mazur is known for his work in experimental ultrafast optics and condensed matter physics and a national leader in science education. Born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, he received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Leiden University in the Netherlands.

Education[link]

Mazur studied physics and astronomy at Leiden University. He passed his "doctoraal examen" (equivalent to a master's degree) in 1977 and continued his graduate studies at the same institution. In 1981 he obtained his Ph.D on a thesis entitled "The structure of non-equilibrium angular momentum polarizations in polyatomic gases". Although he intended to go on to a career in industry with Philips N.V. in Eindhoven, he left Europe at the urging of his father, Peter Mazur, to pursue a postdoctoral study with recent Nobel laureate Nicolaas Bloembergen at Harvard University.

Career[link]

After two years as a postdoc, Mazur was offered a position of assistant professor at Harvard University. In 1987 he was promoted to associate professor and obtained tenure three years later in 1990. Mazur currently holds a chair as Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics jointly in the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and in the Physics Department. He is also the Dean of Applied Physics.

Research[link]

Mazur's early work at Harvard focused on the use of short-pulse lasers to carry out spectroscopy of highly vibrationally excited molecules. Mazur and his group have made many pioneering contributions to the field of ultrashort laser pulses and their interactions with matter ("femtosecond material science"). In 1989 his group was one of the first in academia to build a colliding-pulse mode-locked laser, which generated pulses of only 70 femtosecond duration. After early measurements by Mazur’s group demonstrated conclusively that solids can undergo a structural phase transition without appreciable heating of the lattice, Mazur’s group developed a technique to measure the full dielectric function of highly excited semiconductors. Since then the group’s use of this technique and various nonlinear optical probes to study laser-induced structural phase transitions.

In parallel to the work on semiconductors, Mazur began studying the interaction of intense femtosecond pulses with transparent materials. By tightly focusing a laser pulse in the bulk of a transparent material nonlinear optical absorption occurs inside the material, leading to extreme high temperatures and material changes at the focus. This femtosecond laser micromachining technique is now widely used for data storage, fabrication of integrated optical components, and microsurgery.

A light-conducting silica nanowire wraps a beam of light around a strand of human hair. The nanowire is about one-thousandth the width of the hair. Credit: Limin Tong, Harvard University

In 1998 a serendipitous discovery in Mazur's laboratory led to the development of a new methode to form a silicon surface modification, called "black silicon" because of its very low reflectivity. After irradiation by a train of femtosecond laser pulses in the presence of a halogen containing gas, the surface of silicon develops a self-organized microscopic structure of micrometer-sized cones. The resulting material has many remarkable properties, such as an enhanced absorption that extends to the infrared below the band gap of silicon. The material has found commercial applications in a number of photodetectors.

Mazur's research continues to focus on ultrashort laser pulse interactions and novel nonlinear optical devices. In collaboration with a group from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, Mazur's group was the first to develop a technique for pulling subwavelength diameter silica optical fibers. These wires guide light in the form of an evanescent wave, permit very sharp bending of the light.

Peer instruction[link]

In 1991, Mazur began designing an instructional strategy for teaching called peer instruction. In 1997, he published a book called Peer Instruction: A User's Manual which provides details on this strategy.

Peer Instruction (PI) has been found to be more beneficial than class-wide discussion or lecture. In fact, according to an article in the March/April 2009 edition of Complexity, over 90% of instructors who have tried PI plan to continue to use it and incorporate it more into teaching.^[1] The seating arrangement plays an important role in the outcome of this method. For example, when low-performing students are seated in the front, their chance to do better increases. Meanwhile, the results of high-performing students who are seated in the back are not affected. In addition, when high-performing students are seated in the outer four corners of the classroom, the performance of the class as a whole increases.

Awards[link]

Mazur has been widely recognized for his scientific work and leadership.

• 1988 – Awarded the Presidential Young Investigator Award by President Ronald Reagan.
• 1989 – Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society.
• 1999 – Award for excellence in educational research by the Council of Scientific Society Presidents
• 2006 – selected as one of 75 most outstanding American physicists by the American Association of Physics Teachers
• 2008 – Awarded the Esther Hoffman Beller Medal by the Optical Society of America.

References[link]

• Mazur, E. (1997). Peer Instruction: A User's Manual, Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-565441-6

• Monterola, C., Roxas, R.M., and Carreon-Monterola, S. (2008). Characterizing the Effect of Seating Arrangement on Classroom Learning Using Neural Networks. Complexity, 14(4), 26–33. ISSN 1076-2782.[1]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Eric Mazur

• Mazur Group at Harvard University
• Eric Mazur's profile at Harvard
• Eric Mazur's physics profile at Harvard