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Does accepting a teaching-heavy position affect your ability to obtain a research job?

In our new “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

I am wondering if it’s really true that placing in a teaching-heavy position affects one’s perceived career trajectory so much that they’re effectively out of the running for more research-heavy positions in the future. This post on trajectory seems to say just that, but it only relies on anecdotal evidence, and it only got one corroborating comment: https://philosopherscocoon.com/2018/07/10/mid-career-reflections-part-6-trajectory-matters/

To me, it does seem like such a placement would make your application to research-heavy institutions a bit less competitive, but that can be counterbalanced by maintaining an active research program in reputable journals. But maybe I’m overly optimistic.

I appreciate the OP raising this issue, and suspect there are more than a few readers who would be interested in knowing better answers than the earlier post and discussion were able to provide.

What do readers think? Have any readers been able to move from a teaching-heavy position to a job at a research university? Or, if you ended up at a teaching-focused job, did you find yourself wanting to leave but “stuck” there despite maintaining an active research program in reputable journals?

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10 responses to “Does accepting a teaching-heavy position affect your ability to obtain a research job?”

  1. moved with difficulty

    I have moved after many years from a teaching position to a research position. In my assessment and experience, it is almost impossible to make such a move. I will say more about why this is the case below.
    But, here is an exercise: try to name 3 people who moved from tenured or TT teaching positions to research positions (I bet you cannot name even one … and you probably won’t name me as I am not that well known). Let us leave aside VERY elite private colleges for this exercise – I can think of one who moved from such a college into jobs at research universities.
    There was a sociological study of academic mobility done quite a while ago, and the chief finding was that MOST academics stay at the same kind of institution (R1, 4-yr college, etc.) that they were at when the hit the 10 year mark after their Ph.D.
    From my experience, in order to move up you have to far outperform candidates seeking to make a lateral. When I moved, despite spending a large part of my career at a teaching focused college, I came in as the most productive and most cited in my new department. I doubt I would have been hired otherwise.

    Reply
  2. PL

    I am also very curious to hear what people have to say about this! To get things going, I wanted to ask something about the original 2018 post. From what I understand, Marcus’s point was that the move from a NTT gig at an R1 to a NTT gig at a teaching-focused institution is what likely caused the downward shift in perceived trajectory. When I first started skimming the post, however, I thought he was going to say that accepting a NTT gig at all was what affected him. Is this less of a factor? I suppose my question is about a potential ambiguity in “teaching focused job”, since all NTT (non-postdoc) jobs tend to be teaching-focused. Is one also limiting oneself by taking a NTT job at an R1? How might that compare to someone in a TT job at a very regional/teaching heavy institution (in terms of viability for R1 TT jobs, that is). As someone in a NTT job at a good R1 who is still holding out hope for a TT job someplace I am very curious to hear what people think!

    Reply
  3. VAP to TT

    I think there’s even a perceived difference between a VAP at an R1 and a more permanent/renewable NTT at an R1, even though both are generally ‘teaching focused.’ Being a VAP at an R1 doesn’t seem to me to have nearly the effect on people’s perception of one’s career trajectory as being an NTT, even at an R1. If you’re aiming for a TT job at an R1, I’d say the only gigs that don’t affect perceptions of career trajectory in this limiting way are post-docs, with VAPs at R1s (or perhaps also at elite SLACs) as a second-best option.

    I’d wager it’s because being a VAP doesn’t cause people to slot you in the category of ‘teacher’ rather than ‘researcher,’ as I think being in an NTT position, even at an R1, often does. This is, of course, unfair.

    Reply
  4. Michel

    Apart from anything else, it’s harder to work on your research profile when

    (1) you’re teaching 8-10 courses a year and have no help with marking,
    (2) your library access isn’t great, and lags new journal content by a year or more
    (3) you don’t have much, if any, conference funding or funding to buy books
    (4) you don’t get as many/any invitations to speak, or referee, etc. (this is about exposure to new work, and exposing other researchers to yours)
    (5) you aren’t supervising any grad students (this is about exposure to new work and new perspectives on old work, regular conversations about your AOS, etc.)

    It’s far from impossible–I do quite well for myself, for example–but it’s harder. (1) and (2) are the biggest obstacles.

    For my part, I know of two people who have made the move, but one was from a pretty fancy SLAC. The other went from a community college to an R1 with an MA program, then from there to an R1 with a PhD program.

    Reply
  5. research postdoc

    One way to assess this is to look at the backgrounds of people with TT research positions in departments of interest. At my doctoral granting department, there was one instance of someone with a former tenured position at an *elite* college being hired. However, this was a very unusual circumstance, as the person was hired partly to fulfil a nonstandard interdisciplinary teaching/supervision need and had a very strong research record in this area. All the other faculty in the department, to my knowledge, have spent their entire careers in research jobs.

    I’ve also been repeatedly warned by these faculty that taking a teaching job often means you get “stuck” in a teaching career track (obviously, this is not an issue if it is in fact what you want to do!). So I suspect it may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because research faculty believe that people get stuck in teaching jobs, this might implicitly affect how they assess applications when hiring… you get the point.

    Reply
  6. It is true, let’s not deceive ourselves

    Impression management: someone who works at a teaching-intensive school presumably likes teaching, an impression that is reinforced if this person does not crank out top tier publications on the regular. The assumption is that this person is not going to be the next David Lewis or Peter Singer.

    As others have noted, working at a prestigious SLAC and having cranked out numerous top tier pubs can help offset these impressions. However, it is uphill battle given the starting point.

    Having worked at a teaching-intensive school and served on numerous hiring committees, the reverse bias is definitely true: we did not even look at top tier candidates with multiple publications and limited teaching experience. Why? We assumed they would not be happy here. The candidates from *fancy school* had to really, really sell themselves on their love of and readiness for teaching.

    Reply
  7. just my experience

    I had a teaching-heavy job for a year. During that time, I had next to no time to do my own research. I got out by publishing two papers during that year; both were submitted prior to starting the teaching job. After moving into my current research-teaching job, I had a year and a half without anything accepted anywhere. For me, if I had stayed any longer in the teaching job, I would not be able to move out.

    So I would say that there are risks.

    Reply
  8. JR

    Agree with everything said here, but let me reiterate the time and resources issues identified by Michel. I’m in a teaching heavy (undergrad only) position with high service requirements and an administration that refuses to grant anyone course releases/buyouts, regardless of the size or prestige of outside grants. This has meant basically zero time for research and writing during the semester. I have been able to earn tenure on the basis of specialist publications and several higher profile invited pieces. But these took all of the little research time I had, leaving me basically no opportunity to work up anything to send to major generalist journals. Now I am looking to move to a research job (partner took a position in a different city and I’m tired of not having any research engagement in my home department), but my research output over the last decade, while respectable, contains no publications in “top” journals, making my applications essentially dead on arrival, as far as I can tell. While prestige bias is certainly a problem, the bigger problem is time. People at R-1 jobs and fancy SLACs publish more and in fancier places because they are afforded the time necessary to do so. Hiring committees that judge candidates based on the venue of their publications more than the content reinforce this. Like so many things in our profession, its a self-perpetuating cycle.

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  9. Assc prof

    I teach a 4/4 in a position I’ve had for eight years. In that time I’ve interviewed for a range of positions, including some in programs with PhD and MA programs, as well as some R1s without those. I didn’t get the jobs, but I’m clearly not out of the running in virtue of my position.

    Reply
  10. aa

    I do know of one person who made the jump from a teaching position to an R1 university, but they are quite the exceptional person and had a book deal and some award-winning articles in order to make that jump.

    Reply

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