My Official Certification

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Since my university is getting ready for the big inspection by Beijing Ministry of Education, they've made a number of changes around the school. Some of them have been purely cosmetic (like the trees) and others have been more substantial. One thing they did was create titles for all the foreign teachers. Chinese instructors already have titles, so this minimizes differences between our departments. I think the university's hope is that by giving us all titles it will show the inspectors that we're valued members of the faculty.

In the US, there are three levels of professor but in China there are four. One of the women who works in the Foreign Affairs Office explained it to me like this:


• Assistant Professor
• Better than Assistant but not as good as Associate
• Associate Professor
• Professor



I'm the one with the long title and no English equivalent, a jiang shi.

Some of the teachers here aren't as excited as I am. I'm thrilled. While I can and have used the term "professor" to describe my job (since I teach in a university), it's quite another thing to have your university declare it to be your title.

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Photos

我是讲师。
The certifies that I'm really a professor.

Comments

[anonymous]

four levels
初级职称: 助教 中级职称: 讲师 高级职称: 副教授 , 教授