Bah! Lecturer, Sr. Lecturer, Adjunct Professor all mean more or less the same thing: a person who is not on a tenured academic career track, but whom the institution respects sufficiently to put in front of their students as an academic authority. Often such people will do the job for a short interlude between major non-academic gigs.
He did not have any professorial status whatsoever. I researched it.
Wrong. He was teaching at a major American university. It was on the U of C's campus that the first nuclear reactor was built. Here's how the University currently characterizes him:
Statement Regarding Barack Obama
The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer."From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers has high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.
You should read the opinions of the REAL professors there about Obama’s “sloppy, lazy” work ethic : )
Hindsight. By raising his status, the U of C lowered its own! It has fallen far since the days of Fermi.
“Hindsight. By raising his status, the U of C lowered its own!”
Like many other so-called top notch schools. By the way, I wasn’t trying to insult you. Both of my parents were college (full) professors, so I know the hierarchy, and the pecking order. If one is a “lecturer”, one is NOT a professor, even an “assistant” professor is a professor, , albeit a lowly one. Therefore, U of C LIED by calling him a professor, and probably LIED about his offer of a permanent professorship to boot.
Respectfully, SJB