How necessary is research for a collegiate teaching job?

Question

I am finishing up a PhD and looking toward teaching. I have a Masters in Math, Masters in Computer Science and am finishing up a PhD in Computational Science. I am wondering how important research is to academia jobs.

I love to teach and am very good at it and I could honestly see myself teaching for the rest of my life and not doing research (writing paper, presenting at conferences, etc is very stressful for me). My question is how important is research to getting a job in academia. For example, I see one person at my university is an associate professor and does no have a PhD. Is this person publishing?

Are full-time professors at community colleges publishing and active in on-going research?

Are there ways to become a full-time, tenured professor without a great track record for research?

Answer 1

Yes, it is possible. Of course, you will probably teach more than you would if you were in a "traditional" professhorship (with teaching and research), but if you love teaching, maybe that is great.

This article from the Chronicle of Higher Education has some useful statements, to wit:

research and writing are not part of a faculty member's typical workday at a two-year college.

Also:

The good news is that the vast majority of two-year colleges do not require faculty members to publish a single word in order to earn tenure. [...] most community colleges do still offer tenure. In many state systems, earning tenure is simply a matter of doing your job in a satisfactory manner for a set period of time—generally, three to five years.

There are also positions at four-year liberal-arts colleges that are primarily teaching-oriented.