The highest title for university teachers, professor, also has a "rank"?

Professor is the highest rank of university teaching title. But being rated as a professor does not mean that the road to promotion ends there. The professor, which represents the highest title of university teachers, also has a "rank".

In the history of higher education in China, there was a three-tier professorial grading system for a long time (before 1966), and having a high-level professor represented the leading academic status of the institution in the corresponding discipline and added a lot of pride to the institution.

In 2008, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Personnel jointly released the grading and posting methods for college teachers, stipulating that the posts of college teachers in China in the new period are divided into 13 levels, among which the posts of full professors include one to four levels, which are divided into first-level professors, second-level professors, third-level professors, and fourth-level professors. The level of professors also reflects some extent the academic level and working ability of professors.

This move has been introduced for more than ten years and has continued to generate extensive comments from the higher education community. What are the differences between each rank? What about the implementation of the professorial grading system?

One level is better than the other

There is a decreasing trend in the ranking and the amount of prestige of professors from level one to level four.

First-class professors are the highest rank, called "the highest yardstick of academic status", and are generally academic leaders at the academician level.

Second-class professors are second only to first-class professors, are close to leading figures in the academic field, and are generally the main leaders of universities and research institutes.

Professors of the third level are generally full professors who have worked for a long time and have made some breakthroughs, i.e., heads of disciplines, municipal backbones, young elites, etc.

Fourth-rank professors are full professors in general.

The echelon of professors from the first level to the fourth level is also in the shape of a pyramid. The number of professors of grade one has the highest gold value and the number of those who can be evaluated is also very small; while the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Personnel in the "Circular on the Issuance of Three Guiding Opinions on the Posting Management of Educational Institutions such as Higher Education Schools, Compulsory Education Schools and Secondary Vocational Schools" stipulates the overall national control target of the structural ratio between different grades within the senior posts of higher education schools: the ratio between grade two, three and four posts is 1:3:6.

Moreover, the title rank of professors is directly linked to the remuneration package. 2019 Wuchang Polytechnic Institute has carried out a reform of its salary system, in which the annual salary of first-class professors is 600,000 yuan, second-class professors are 450,000 yuan, third-class professors is 300,000 yuan and fourth-class professors is 180,000 yuan; and first-class professors and second-class professors enjoy free villa housing with attendants to provide logistic services, etc.

The difference in annual salary between each grade is more than 100,000, which shows that even for the same professor, there is a big gap in salary and benefits for different title grades.

Professorial grading, the god's fight

If you want to be promoted from the fourth level professor upward, as the gold content of the title level gets higher and higher, the evaluation conditions of each level also change, making more and more strict requirements on various aspects such as working years, quality of teaching work, level of published papers and research on topics.

For example, if you want to be appointed as a professor, you need to be a professor for at least 5 years in terms of seniority, and you also need to make great contributions to business, such as being the host of the key projects of the National Social Science Foundation or having won the National Teaching Achievement Award, presiding over 3 provincial-level projects and officially publishing more than 5 books and more than 10 academic publications in core journals. Academic publications, etc.

The threshold is even higher if you want to be evaluated as a second-level professor. In the case of the Liaoning University of Technology, for example, first-class top professionals who have made significant contributions to the country, such as the hosts of the three national awards, can be directly employed; if you are involved in the selection of employment, you need to hold a professorship for about 10 years and have outstanding performance in talent assessment, awards, projects and achievements, such as being a special allowance expert of the State Council, a recipient of the National Outstanding Youth Fund, a recipient of various industry, In addition, they must have made significant contributions to the development of science and technology, or economic and social development and spiritual civilization in their regions.

As for the first-class professor, generally, only the top scholars at the academician level can meet the relevant assessment standards, and the requirements are the most stringent. In the past, first-class professors were only awarded to academicians of the two academies until 2009, when the Renmin University of China first hired 14 first-class professors in humanities and social sciences, taking the lead in the field of philosophy and social sciences to launch the pilot work of appointing first-class professors. However, regardless of the discipline, they are in, those who can be appointed as first-class professors are internationally renowned academic masters who have made outstanding contributions to the construction of China in various aspects.

It is not easy for university teachers to be promoted to professors, and it takes at least ten years, if not decades, on average. It takes at least ten years, if not decades, to reach the rank of professor, and it is a very successful "lucky" person.

The competition for promotion from the fourth rank to the first rank is comparable to the "fight of the gods" and is as difficult as "taking the scriptures from the west".

Professor grading is a "double-edged sword"?

The rating of faculty positions is an important measure to deepen the personnel system reform in universities. However, when the system came out, university teachers and some members of the community held their views on the grading system.

In the past, professors in universities enjoyed the same treatment as long as their titles were the same, and the various titles of professors were tenured. Even if professors with the same title made different contributions to teaching and research, there was no way to reflect the difference in income and other aspects.

With the implementation of the grading system for professors, the promotion space of each professor has been greatly increased, which also plays a great role in motivating the improvement of business level and eliminates the phenomenon of "stagnation" after many teachers reach the post of professor. Zhou Guangli, a doctoral supervisor at the Academy of Educational Sciences of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, believes that the rating and posting system will continue to motivate teachers to study and teach, and no longer think that the professor is "the end".

Secondly, the rating and posting system improves teachers' income, which is conducive to teachers' mobility and university development and stimulates the vitality of the whole teaching team. Professors have to be rated at different levels and enjoy different treatment according to their achievements, which directly reflects the different degrees of contribution under the same title.

However, there are also university teachers who have raised some questions about this system.

As mentioned in the article of "The Grading and Posting System for Teachers in Universities in China", some people think that for those teachers who are devoted to academics, too frequent assessment and grading will make them tired and interfere with their peaceful environment of learning. The fact that they are rated once every two years may lead some professors to pursue "short and quick" research to achieve results.

There are also concerns that the new grading system seems to focus more on the "hard" indicators of seniority, length of service, and position, which may lead to the prevalence of seniority. In addition, will the academic voice of professors be affected by "rank"? Is a third-rank professor necessarily more authoritative than a fourth-rank professor?

It is true that due to complex human and social factors, any evaluation and grading system will have unsatisfactory aspects. Even in the United States, where the academic talent grading system is relatively well established, the tenure system (part of the U.S. academic talent grading system), which was issued in 1940, has faced various challenges since the 1990s and had to be reformed. Professor Zhou Guangli also pointed out, "Many aspects do need further mapping and improvement, but this work in general shows the importance the country attaches to university teachers. "

University teachers are the highly intellectual core of colleges and universities, and professors are the most senior and most weighty intellectuals. The fundamental purpose of grading professors, and even grading the titles of teachers as a whole, is not to aggravate the "internal volume", but to give full play to the positive effect of the grading and posting system, and to motivate professors to make progress, so that the teaching team can be continuously optimized as a whole and the quality of university education can be steadily improved.

In practice, the implementation of a professor grading system may encounter such and such problems, but there are reasons to believe that the professor grading system can be optimized continuously with a developmental vision and a systematic approach.