Do universities hire M.S. candidates to science professorships?

No. While I've seen some tenured professionals with just the MS at small community colleges, I would be that at a university your brother is probably an adjunct instructor of some sort, not a full professor. You could work as an instructor at some smaller schools, but for the professor title (and benefits) at a university you most likely need the PhD.

Differentiate a few a academia titles and terms:

* Faculty Professor/Associate Professor

* Researcher/Associate Researcher

* Instructor

* Adjunct Lecturer

I have met many talented *instructors* and *lecturers* who have contributed to research and taught harder intermediate courses at the university level without having a PhD or JD. But you must really standout on something specific and/or contributed significance to the field. Cant just apply for it have to be an industry leader of the sort.

For STEM fields, good luck getting a professorship without a PhD and some time as a postdoc. As the poster above said, community colleges will sometimes hire candidates with only a masters. But, for a real university and an actual tenure-track professor spot, just having a doctorate alone is not really enough anymore.

aspiring chemist wrote:

I have a brother teaching English and screenwriting at a major university with only a master's. Do universities allow the same in the sciences? At this point in my life I'm probably not interested in pursuing a doctorate, but I'm wondering if earning my master's would open up the academic world.

it would have to be a really really bad university.

Dill Dickleson wrote:

For STEM fields, good luck getting a professorship without a PhD and some time as a postdoc. As the poster above said, community colleges will sometimes hire candidates with only a masters. But, for a real university and an actual tenure-track professor spot, just having a doctorate alone is not really enough anymore.

This. My husband is a PhD at a med school and without a postdoc, you're pretty much worthless to them.

Having said that, you can probably be adjunct with a masters at smaller schools without too much trouble (especially if you work in that field.)

aspiring chemist wrote:

I have a brother teaching English and screenwriting at a major university with only a master's. Do universities allow the same in the sciences? At this point in my life I'm probably not interested in pursuing a doctorate, but I'm wondering if earning my master's would open up the academic world.

Any decent university would laugh in your face and toss your application in the garbage.

I had some lecturers that did not have PhDs, but they all had a masters and all made significant contributions to their fields in industry before coming to teach.

It's possible to become a lecture with just an MS, but almost impossible to become a professor with research responsibilities without a PhD.

At my program we had a decent number of professors without a PhD (though not the majority). Most of them had an MBA, JD or something similar from another top-tier school, as well as super-legit work experience (starting own companies, etc.). I would guess it only happens in the sciences once in a blue moon though, for example if some successful dropout like Bill Gates wanted to teach I don't think he'd be fighting an uphill batte.

Good feedback. Thank you all.

I suppose "professorship" might be a misnomer as it implies research positions -- I'm mostly interested in the lecturing side of academia. I work for a very large company and am looking at transitioning to teaching later in my career. I'm trying to figure out education needs and what opportunities are out there to make that happen.

If you've got a MS and time in industry and want to teach classes that relate to your industry work, then that might work as an adjunct instructor - especially at smaller schools/community college level.

aspiring chemist wrote:

Good feedback. Thank you all.

I suppose "professorship" might be a misnomer as it implies research positions -- I'm mostly interested in the lecturing side of academia. I work for a very large company and am looking at transitioning to teaching later in my career. I'm trying to figure out education needs and what opportunities are out there to make that happen.

Do you work as a scientist or an engineer? You may be qualified as a lecturer. But if you are working in business (especially as an entrepreneur) and have a science background, you may be a better fit for a business school/MBA program, given your level of success.

aspiring chemist wrote:

I have a brother teaching English and screenwriting at a major university with only a master's. Do universities allow the same in the sciences? At this point in my life I'm probably not interested in pursuing a doctorate, but I'm wondering if earning my master's would open up the academic world.

You could probably get a tenure track position in community college or, as mentioned, get a lecturer/non-tenure track university position, but it's not going to be easy. Most PhD students in the hard sciences have difficulty landing academic positions these days, and many paths to tenure track professorships will expect significant prior work in postdoc research positions.

Why do you want to go into academia? The pay's way worse than what physics/chemistry/engineering/cs MS holders could expect in industry, and depending on where you're working, the hours might not even be all that much better. Going into academia as a PhD makes sense if you have a clear research goal that you want to pursue, but if you just want to "open up the academic world"...why?

aspiring chemist wrote:

I have a brother teaching English and screenwriting at a major university with only a master's. Do universities allow the same in the sciences? At this point in my life I'm probably not interested in pursuing a doctorate, but I'm wondering if earning my master's would open up the academic world.

What field/department is he teaching in? Creative writing? Cinema studies? That matters because In the artier fields, an MFA/MA is considered a terminal graduate degree. In other fields, a masters is becoming a consolation prize, given to people who flunked out of PhD programs.

More to the point, what are his professional credentials? Was he selling books or screenplays? Working in the field? Being a successful artist often substitutes for a PhD. I'm not sure what the equivalent would be in science.

Science departments are filled with people who have MAs who teach intro classes, run labs, etc. Some are well paid, but many are not.

Scientist. MBA is another career option as the business positions are typically filled with scientists/engineers.

As to why, there are a few options with associated reasons:

1) To coach HS or CC track/XC (I'm obsessed with the sport)

2) As a hobby (As the kids move out I could teach night classes for fun and for a little extra income)

3) Change of scenery (I'm eventually going to get bored in my field)

My income is good enough that after 20 years in my field I won't hurt too much to take a pay cut. Plus if I make the switch to HS/CC/small university teaching, having summers off would be nice.

Correct. The PhD is relatively new in creative writing and most programs still consider the MFA to be a terminal degree. An MFA with an impressive publishing record or successfully produced screenplays or the equivalent would be enough to earn tenure at even prestigious universities with well-regarded creative writing programs (and well regarded science programs). Comparing a well published MFA to a chemist with an MS doesn't make sense.More to the point, as someone else noted, the MS often is awarded partway through the science PhD and so someone claiming it as their final academic degree tends to be associated with a whiff of failure. At some European universities master's degrees of some description are awarded to candidates whose doctoral dissertations fail at the defense. It's a kind of degree that can only be earned that way, so while it may sound impressive to a general audience, anyone in the know recognizes it as an unfortunate indication of failure.The overwhelming number of applications for teaching positions tends to lead people to come up with very uncreative ways of cutting down the applicant pool. Toss out everyone who hasn't completed the PhD. Still too big? Toss out everyone who hasn't completed a post doc. Etc.

It all depends wrote:

What field/department is he teaching in? Creative writing? Cinema studies? That matters because In the artier fields, an MFA/MA is considered a terminal graduate degree. In other fields, a masters is becoming a consolation prize, given to people who flunked out of PhD programs.

More to the point, what are his professional credentials? Was he selling books or screenplays? Working in the field? Being a successful artist often substitutes for a PhD. I'm not sure what the equivalent would be in science.

.

It all depends wrote:

What field/department is he teaching in? Creative writing? Cinema studies? That matters because In the artier fields, an MFA/MA is considered a terminal graduate degree. In other fields, a masters is becoming a consolation prize, given to people who flunked out of PhD programs.

More to the point, what are his professional credentials? Was he selling books or screenplays? Working in the field? Being a successful artist often substitutes for a PhD. I'm not sure what the equivalent would be in science.

Science departments are filled with people who have MAs who teach intro classes, run labs, etc. Some are well paid, but many are not.

That's about what I expected. He's well published, managed to land a couple prestigious fellowships, and is on the cusp of landing a major movie deal with a couple of his screenplays. Screenplay sales/movie production move about as fast as molasses in January -- that part has been eye-opening to me. One has been optioned twice over the last 8 years but hasn't reached production yet.

Jdbsbabay wrote:

I had some lecturers that did not have PhDs, but they all had a masters and all made significant contributions to their fields in industry before coming to teach.

It's possible to become a lecture with just an MS, but almost impossible to become a professor with research responsibilities without a PhD.

Though it has been done.