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A quick question. If someone start his/her Ph.D at the age of 44 and finish it by 50, what are the chances of joining academic world as a tenured lecturer in US

Bhaskar Baruah
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    Lecturers are not tenure track. Entry level on tenure track is assistant professor. If you publish and do well, you might be promoted to associate professor and gain tenure after perhaps 3 to 7 years. It's very unlikely you would "join" with tenure. – Nicole Hamilton Sep 10 '16 at 14:18
  • If you assume 3 years as a post doc and a 6 year tenure clock, then you would be 59 before getting tenure. A gap here or there and retirement age could be a big factor. – StrongBad Sep 10 '16 at 14:18
  • Thanks. I understand that after completion of Ph.D, I have to go through Post-Doc and non-tenure positions before I can land up in a tenured position. I guess its a long path !!! – Bhaskar Baruah Sep 10 '16 at 14:24
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    Some fields do not involve postdocs. Some involve one year's worth. Tenure is not everything. And even if you don't finish the PhD, you might find you like the work (i.e. the studies), and that it enriches your life in a variety of ways. Also note that very few people retire before 65 these days, and the researchers and professors I know find their work so rewarding that they just keep going after 65, reducing their load as they feel the need/desire. – aparente001 Sep 10 '16 at 14:51
  • If your objective is simply that you would like to teach at a university because you think it would be rewarding (it is), you may be able to do that now, depending on your field and experience, with only a master's as a lecturer. These positions often require PhD but not always. You might also consider teaching as a an affiliate (part time) lecturer. – Nicole Hamilton Sep 10 '16 at 14:57
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    See also http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24577/i-want-to-do-research-but-im-too-old-for-a-phd and related questions – StrongBad Sep 10 '16 at 16:54
  • In most cases in the US, discrimination based on age is illegal. So you will complete for these positions with all the other new Ph.D.s. There is no reason to think you cannot become a tenured faculty member at some institution of higher learning. – GEdgar Sep 10 '16 at 19:08
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    Is there a language issue here? "Lecturer" has different meanings in the UK and the US. – Alexander Woo Sep 10 '16 at 20:36

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(copying from my own comments above with some tweaking)

Lecturer is primarily a teaching position and is not tenure track. Tenure track comes with research responsibilities. Entry level on tenure track is assistant professor. If you publish and do well, you might be promoted to associate professor and gain tenure after perhaps 3 to 7 years. It's very unlikely you would "join" with tenure.

If your objective is simply that you'd like to teach at a university because you think it would be rewarding (it is) and you're not so interested in research, you want to be a lecturer, even though it will never get you tenure. And you may be able to do that now with only a master's. These positions often require PhD but not always. It depends on how the search committee decides to write their ad. You might also consider teaching as an affiliate lecturer. These are part-time appointments that don't require a competitive search, usually only a faculty vote.

Nicole Hamilton
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