Jump to content

Talk:Reader (academic rank)

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Role of Readers

[edit]

In some Universities (including mine), Reader was the title given to the administrative head of a Department whose nominal Professor was an absentee. Two of our science Departments had major SERC funding, in return for which their chairs were awarded to government appointees. The "Professors" spent most of their time on committees and at conferences (it was said they needed their University appointments to raise their standing in international academic circles, where someone no more senior than a lecturer with tenure might have the title "Professor"). So those Departments were run by a "Reader", who was in effect the Professor in all but name; this is analogous to the University itself being run by a Vice-Chancellor, while the Chancellor is just a celeb figurehead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Swiveler (talkcontribs) 05:54, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comparison to "Docent"

[edit]

The recent changes by GGV are insufficiently documented, without any citation. The statement that "Docent is Professor extraordinarius" and I guess therefore "like" a reader an utter generalisation. This might well be the case that in Norway all "Docents" became professors some twenty years ago, it seems inadequate to make such generalisation. The German case shows exactly the opposite, where eg professor is the opposite end on the scale of seniority from "Dozent". Likewise, in many other places the term is merely used generically to denote right to teach.

Please, do not change anything any more on this issue before discussing it here. Many thanks!

Mootros (talk) 12:12, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Historical origin

[edit]

I've been wondering whether or not the term has a religious connotation e.g. as in dean (education) and deacon (unabb. form of dean (Christianity)). Hopefully someone who is informed can help! 5.151.82.56 (talk) 01:19, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Both readers and professors in the UK would correspond to full professors in the US."

[edit]

Really? I don't trust the reference for this. Readers are the butt-monkeys of British universities!137.205.183.109 (talk) 14:51, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Certainly it was the case a few decades ago. You were only appointed a reader if you were already a Senior Lecturer and had a very good research record. Lecturers were roughly equivalent to Assistant Professors although you had tenure and could stay a Lecturer for your whole career. I recall there was 14 annual increments in pay to the top of the scale. Senior Lecturers were roughly equivalent to Associate Professors and Readers and Professors were equivalent to the US Professor. Back then in UK there were far fewer Professors in a department (often only 1 or 2) than full Professors in a US department. I do not know what you mean by butt-monkeys, but I think you should withdraw it as it is an insult to the fine scholars who were Readers. --Bduke (Discussion) 22:21, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Bduke is entirely correct. The US has some 4,000 universities/colleges and far more people with the (full) Professor title than the UK. The most distinguished academics in the US, who are broadly comparable to Professors in the UK, tend to hold a named chair, distinguished professorship or some sort of comparable position. The idea that "readers are the butt-monkeys of British universities" is both ridiculous and wrong; readers are near the top of the UK academic ladder. --Bjerrebæk (talk) 15:13, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ha ha, near enough anyway to see the hole dumping sh*t on them! The professors I know in the UK are mostly frauds and thugs who have climbed over the backs of others. Either you're an honest fellow who's never see the inside of a UK university, or else you are one of them.137.205.100.180 (talk) 15:22, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Reader (academic rank). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 10:25, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Recommend removing references to Australia and New Zealand

[edit]

The academic rank of "Reader" is not used in Australia and New Zealand, so recommend removing references to them. See here for actual ranks used:

https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Academic_ranks_(Australia_and_New_Zealand) Jimmythemini2 (talk) 09:54, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]