Would several years of appointment as a lecturer hurt you when you decide to go for a tenure-track position later on?

Question

Academic jobs are always on a state of high-demand, more people seeking positions than there are the latter. I am an international worker in the US searching for a university position. Currently in my situation, lecturer positions seem more reachable than tenure-track because of various factors such as the number of publications, start date (lecturer seems to have more variable starting date than assistant professor, is this correct?), my visa period (which will expire in 4 months, so preferably can find an academia position since the H1B for these jobs is not capped). But ultimately, I still desire a research-focus job. Assuming I get an offer to teach as a lecturer and after 2-5 years decide to switch to assistant professor whether in the same institution or somewhere else, would my application be undermined in some way by the fact that I spent a couple of years not focusing on research? Also, how manageable is it actually to do a lecturer while doing your own research, e.g. collaborating with your former postdoc labs or getting a research grant?

Answer 1

Also, how manageable is it actually to do a lecturer while doing your own research, e.g. collaborating with your former postdoc labs or getting a research grant?

This is the question that is intimately tied to your title question.

Situations vary from position to position, but the overall impression I get is that lecturers are overwhelmingly expected to contribute their full time to instruction, and although part-time lecturer positions may be available the salary is typically too low to survive on at an expected standard of living for someone with a college education without a partner making a normal salary.

That means there is effectively no time to dedicate to research and it is not possible to be competitive with people who do have dedicated research time.

It's not so much that your application will be "undermined", but that if you currently lack the research productivity to be offered a tenure track job, you should not expect that spending far less time on research will change that for the better.

It's possible you would be more competitive for tenure-track jobs with a teaching emphasis at institutions with less focus on research, but that's probably true now, too.

Answer 2

I largely agree with Bryan's answer, but because he mentions not being sure if things would be different at a more teaching-oriented place, I wanted to chime in. I'm a professor at a liberal arts college, that values teaching more than research, and who has been on many hiring committees. For us, there's no expectation of winning a grant.

Unfortunately, I do think candidates who have been in non-tenure track "instructor" roles for too long are at a disadvantage, even if they have managed to do enough research to be "above the bar" on research. I wish it weren't this way, but I think there's some natural human bias that enters the minds of search committee members, causing them to ask themselves why this person stayed in "instructor" jobs instead of securing a tenure track job earlier. There's also bias in favor of shiny new PhDs, because people can forecast in their mind all the amazing things this person could do (vs someone who has been working for enough years that you know exactly what they produce each year). At my university, we now undergo training to try to resist biases like this, and part of that training involves reading research papers illustrating that the bias is real and has real consequences in searches, historically.

For this reason, when we hire an instructor (usually on a 3-year contract), I advise them to push hard to get enough research done to be a viable candidate at a tenure track job, and then to apply for such jobs as early as possible. I think 2-3 years as an instructor can be viewed as analogous to a postdoc, or a chance to learn the ropes of a faculty job. If someone has been an instructor for 5 or more years, I think their chances of getting a tenure track job anywhere decrease a lot.

Part of the reason, in addition to the bias I mentioned, is that many teaching-oriented places prefer to hire folks who are fairly fresh out of their PhDs, and then mentor those folks in the job, teaching them how to effectively teach our specific students. If someone has been an instructor for years elsewhere, they maybe less malleable. Of course, it also means they might bring a radically different and better approach, but it seems the general thinking is still more that it's a negative.

Lastly, in my experience, it seems that searches usually do not result in hiring an internal candidate (i.e., someone who has been working as an instructor in the department already). I think this is because of the bias I mentioned above regarding forecasting the potential of a candidate you just met vs. the tried-and-true person you've been working alongside for years. Again, I think this is lamentable, and I've often wanted to hire our instructors into tenure track jobs, if we had the chance. I think the best advice is to not get too comfortable in a non-tenure track job, and try to stay fresh and exciting (in both research and teaching) so you can outcompete younger people when on the job market.

Let me try to address a few specific questions the OP asked.

Lecturer seems to have more variable starting date than assistant professor, is this correct?

No, that's not correct. In the USA, for both, the starting date is tied to when classes start, e.g., in August or January for universities on the semester system. The vast majority start in August.

ultimately, I still desire a research-focus job...would my application be undermined in some way by the fact that I spent a couple of years not focusing on research?

Yes, absolutely. You'll be competing with folks who had a much lower teaching load, plus explicit research mentorship, and they were in more "prestigious" jobs. You can't afford to not focus on research if you want a research job.

Also, how manageable is it actually to do a lecturer while doing your own research, e.g. collaborating with your former postdoc labs or getting a research grant?

This varies widely. Most lecturers do not do much research. That could be self-selection (i.e., because they chose to take this job), or lack of time, or lack of mentorship, or a combination of factors. However, our lecturers are able to do good research if they want to. They just need to make it a priority, and a bit of mentorship/encouragement helps a lot. I think it's very hard to win a research grant as a lecturer, at least in math. Those tend to go to people doing a postdoc (with little or no teaching, like the NSF postdoc) or to professors who are using the money to fund grad students and postdocs.