These words refer to academic positions or duties germane to higher education. They are the terms most frequently met but may change from university to university in both use and the status implied, even within Australia and New Zealand. Overseas universities may use some of these terms quite differently. Professors are the highest-ranking teachers in a university and have tenure by virtue of status and qualifications within a teaching or research department. Associate-professor and reader are the next most senior positions and are usually held by persons with high qualifications in teaching, administration or research. An associate-professor is often in charge of some important part of a department’s activities. Of no less standing, and with some prestige on account of his rarity, is a reader , who is usually an exceptional scholar in some aspect of his subject; he is much more concerned with research and less with administration and large-scale teaching than the associate-professor .

Another rank, gaining in use, is that of director , who usually has salary and responsibility comparable with an associate-professor’s , but his not the same academic prestige. Such a person has considerable responsibility in the management of large numbers of students in a big university department, for example, as director of first- and second-year studies.

Lecturer is the rank of the experienced university teacher who instructs by means of formal addresses with limited free exchange with his listeners. A tutor , who is of lower status than a lecturer , and usually of lower academic attainment, is more concerned with instruction to small groups on certain sections of a course, and always under the direction of a senior teacher. Some departments such as the scientific or technical disciplines have demonstrators or tutor-demonstrator to do similar directed work, usually in a laboratory. In universities which employ lecturers , tutors , demonstrators and tutor-demonstrators , there is usually opportunity to progress by promotion to senior positions in these categories. All these appointments may be temporary or part-time, but tenure is usually permanent.

Some universities have he positions of assistant-lecturer or junior-lecturer for inexperienced but academically well-qualified graduates. Most of these may have only a first degree but, with the passing of time and the attainment of higher qualifications, they would expect to move to lecturer and senior lecturer or higher positions. At most universities the teaching fellow is the first step for a budding university teacher; he may take classes in the field of his special interest or assist in administration in his department, while proceeding with his own study and research.

Instead of taking a teaching fellowship , a good graduate may obtain a research-student position, which means he will concentrate on working for a higher-degree. In some universities these are research fellows or senior research fellows who are usually experienced academics devoting time essentially to research while holding some grant or scholarship award. A graduate assistant is not usually an outstanding scholar, but is employed to assist a responsible, usually senior, university teacher, or a particular department, in research or administrative work. All this is done under direction and no part is taken in teaching or other academic activities.

Don is almost exclusively a British term, sometimes used rather loosely like academic or scholar, but more precisely indicating any fellow or tutor in a university or university college. The basic instruction by these teachers is to small groups or by individual tuition.