Promoted to full professor
At least in North America, professors are usually first hired at the rank of assistant professor. Your salary is poor and you have little job security. Once you get tenure, you become associate professor. However, if you can convince a set of your peers—including professors from other universities—that you have done an exceptional job as a professor, you may get promoted to the rank of full professor. The salary is better. As you grow older, the salary difference becomes large.
As of yesterday, my promotion to the rank of full professor has been officially approved.
As my students will tell you, I am not always good at explaining strange concepts. Some weeks ago, I called my mother:
- (me) I am promoted!
- (my mother) to what?
- (me) … as a professor
- (my mother) <silence>
- (me) I am promoted to the rank of full professor.
- (my mother) <silence>
- (me) Ok. I will keep the same job, I will just make a lot more money.
- (my mother) Ah! Ok. Good.
Montreal, Canada 
Follow on
Congrats!! Now what’s next?
Comment by Christan Grant — 20/5/2009 @ 13:46
Congrats!!
Comment by Ben — 20/5/2009 @ 13:48
@Christan There is nothing next. That’s the whole point! You either change job (leave your professorship), retire or die.
I can finally stop showering in the morning. Good bye my tooth brush. And I no longer need to make sense (not that I ever did). I’ll also never get another hair cut. Within five years, I’ll look like a smelly bear. I’ll be extremely rude to everyone, and lazy as a mushroom.
(I am kidding, of course. I will still shower in the morning.)
Comment by Daniel Lemire — 20/5/2009 @ 13:53
Congratulations!
Comment by John — 20/5/2009 @ 14:05
Congratulations! This is great news.
Comment by Shahzad Khan — 20/5/2009 @ 14:09
Congratulations / félicitations! I’m glad you’re keep showering–you don’t want to be a rank full professor!
Comment by Daniel Tunkelang — 20/5/2009 @ 15:29
Wow, congratulations! You no longer have to do any work any more
Comment by Sylvie — 20/5/2009 @ 16:17
Congrats, Daniel.
Comment by Will — 20/5/2009 @ 16:25
Congratulations
Comment by Ragib Hasan — 20/5/2009 @ 17:08
Congratulations!
Comment by Neil Conway — 20/5/2009 @ 17:26
Congrats Professor!!
I hope many more accolades are on your way.
Comment by Pavan Yara — 20/5/2009 @ 23:49
Congratulations!!
The conversation with your mother was interesting
Comment by Pardis — 21/5/2009 @ 0:11
Felicitations! Those who read your blog won’t notice whether you’ve showered or not.
Comment by Julian Togelius — 21/5/2009 @ 5:18
Congratulations. Your Mom’s response is priceless…they always want to know you’re doing OK don’t they?
Comment by Janet Clarey — 21/5/2009 @ 6:58
Hi Professor Daniel Lemire, Congratulations to you and your mum. She must be very proud of you – so happy that she couldn’t express them in words – and that you are so rich now. Your sense of humour just shine. I love Maths too…promotion + love from your mum and your family = happiness. Does it sound right? Wonderful to hear such happy news from you.
Comment by Sui Fai John Mak — 21/5/2009 @ 8:34
Congratulations indeed!
So now you can finally start a career as a full time blogger
(…kidding of course)
Comment by Nicholas — 21/5/2009 @ 9:24
Hé, hé, hé…
Now, HOW will you justify any kind of effort?
Still, don’t forget to “save the world” I guess your wife will appreciate
Comment by Kevembuangga — 22/5/2009 @ 2:10
@Christan What’s next? World Domination, of course!
Congratulations, Daniel!
Comment by Anders Sandvig — 22/5/2009 @ 3:13
Congratulations! I thought you were a bit young to be getting to full professor?
Comment by Steven — 22/5/2009 @ 13:41
Congratulations!
“I’ll also never get another hair cut. Within five years, I’ll look like a smelly bear. I’ll be extremely rude to everyone, and lazy as a mushroom.”
Ah, the flashbacks to my undergrad years! That describes about 50% of my old CS profs.
Comment by John Dupuis — 22/5/2009 @ 16:28
Congratulations, I think it is exciting to see when the full academic career path works out for someone!
Especially since now you can pursue new that might be risky or uncertain but you have nothing to lose
Awesome job!
Comment by Bernhard — 24/5/2009 @ 3:02
Congrats!
Comment by Mikhail Lemeshko — 28/5/2009 @ 9:06
congratulations!
Comment by Anonymous — 30/5/2009 @ 21:23
Congratulations!
Comment by Panos Ipeirotis — 31/5/2009 @ 10:41
Congrats!
Comment by Jo Vermeulen — 1/6/2009 @ 4:55