Privatdozent

Privatdozent (abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz.) or Private lecturer is a title conferred in some European university systems, especially in German-speaking countries, for someone who pursues an academic career and holds all formal qualifications (doctorate and habilitation) to become a tenured university professor. With respect to the level of academic achievement, the title compares to associate professor (North America) or something between senior lecturer and reader (UK); however, the title is not connected to any salaried position.

Becoming

Private lectureship is conferred on academics who have earned a doctorate (promotion) and then have written another thesis for habilitation and given a lecture before the respective department or faculty of a university. If they pass the vote after that lecture, they receive the venia legendi (or, rarely, venia docendi) and thus the status of P.D., roughly equivalent to the status of an associate professorship in the American educational system. This means they are able to teach at the respective institution, and may advise master and PhD theses.

Private docents can be employed by the universities as senior researchers and will be paid according to the salary levels for researchers. Private docents that did not have formal position traditionally did not receive a salary (only fees for the specific lectures or classes they taught). Even today, many private docents exist which are not paid.^{[citation needed]}

Professors at a Fachhochschule (a school more focused on professional skills than research), as well as honorary professors, do not need habilitation and thus were seldom private docents. The same is true for professors in the fine arts at academies or similar institutions, as well as in certain other disciplines even at universities, such as engineering.

Ceasing

As opposed to academic titles (like Dr. or Habil.), one loses the P.D. title aspect (but not the venia and the habilitation), either by being called to a professorship (which is the goal of the P.D. position) or by ceasing to teach. The withdrawal of the P.D., the so-called "remotion", is very rare and usually happens in case of extremely serious offenses; a famous case was Eugen Dühring. However, during Nazi times, most if not all Jewish private lecturers were remoted according to the Nuremberg Laws.^{[citation needed]}

Academics who stay in academe although they didn't obtain a professorship are, slightly dismissively, often called "ewige Privatdozenten" (eternal private lecturers); if they are popular, they may receive either a salaried permanent staff appointment (where those still exist) as lecturer or equivalent, and/or the purely honorific title of "außerplanmäßiger Professor" (abbreviated "apl. Prof.").

History and future

The institution of private lecturer started in Germany before 1800. Friedrich Karl von Savigny lectured as privat lecturer in Marburg University in 1802/1803 (Friedrich Karl von Savigny, Juristische Methodenlehre, K.F. Koeler Verlag, Stuttgart 1951, p.p. 5–7). In Prussia it started around 1810, and became established only around 1860. After that, for many years, habilitation remained cumulative, i.e. it was based on already-published work, not a new monograph. The heyday of privatelectureship lasted approximately from 1900 until 1968, when hardly a university professor in a normal field was appointed who had not been a private lecturer.

During the university reforms beginning in 1968, in order to quickly broaden the professorial base for the many newly opened and expanding universities, often professors were appointed who were not private lecturers as well. This was also seen as a political act to counter the alleged inherent conservatism and reactionary views of the German professoriate.

The life of the private lecturer can be unsatisfactory (Georg Simmel called the time "the purgatory of P.D.-ship"^{[citation needed]}). A private lecturer in Germany is generally highly qualified, tends to be around 40 and often has a family, and no salaried position is coupled with this academic title and status. However, the private lecturer is often holder of a paid position as Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter, Hochschulassistent, Hochschuldozent or Akademischer Rat; the salary of these permanent or fixed-term positions is comparable with the salary of American instructors or assistant professors. To address the "overagedness" of the German senior academic staff, there have always been reform attempts to abolish the position, and in 2002 a limited number of "junior professorships" were introduced which are fast-track, time-limited positions to qualify for regular professorships. Initially, this has often been seen as the "beginning of the end" of private lectureship. However, it turned out that the Habilitation is held in great esteem in the academia, and that former junior professors are eager to call themselves Privatdozent or (außerplanmäßiger) Professor in case they did not attain a regular chair.^{[citation needed]}