Has anyone here ever been a visiting Professor at or gained a tenured position at a Japanese University ?

5 comments

1. I started as a part time teacher at a small local college while also doing guest speaker gigs at bigger schools. After about 7 years I had enough connections to find a tenured position that wasn’t advertised anywhere. It was a fun and tiring experience. Lots of travel and lots of getting back on the last train before having to teach an early morning class.

2. [deleted]

3. I’m not a uni guy but I think that this advice holds true for most jobs. If I were you I’d research institutions I was interested in, connect with recently tenured academics working at them and ask for their advice directly. I’d be more than happy to help anyone who contacted me in this way.

4. I’m permanently employed at a university teaching English but have a PhD in a humanity. I haven’t been able to find something in my field trying to varying degrees over several years.

   First, I’m not sure what country you’re in but maybe what you’re calling “visiting professor” is a term-limited lecturer? In general, a “visiting professor” is a well-known scholar who gets invited to come teach a few courses to raise the prestige of an institution.

   My sense as to what it takes to get hired at a Japanese university outside of language teaching:

   1. Japanese reputation of your institution. Harvard is going to do wonders for your in Japan but even high quality programs known in your discipline will probably be unknown here (part of this is true anywhere. Exempting Japan experts, university faculty in the US aren’t going to have heard of most Japanese universities ).
   2. Japanese language ability. Almost everywhere is going to need Japanese language ability except the most elite places. And outside of language teaching, even reasonable competency (like above N1) is still going to be way behind native speakers.
   3. Publications in journals they recognize (again the journals they recognize are going to biased towards their world) in sufficient quantity for the ranks.
   4. Fame of your advisor in Japan and magical connection powers with faculty in Japan.
   5. Involvement in Japanese academic societies in your discipline.
   6. Are you in Japan? (for a lot of places they don’t want to waste time with random international applicants when they already have plenty of local candidates).

   We can also segment the market:

   1. English-language universities (ICU, Asia Pacific University, Akita, Temple?)
   2. Elite public universities (Tokyo, Kyoto, Kyushu, Osaka, Nagoya, Tohoku, Hokkaido)
   3. Elite privates (Keio, Waseda, Aoyama, Sophia)
   4. High tier public and private
   5. Mid-tier public and private
   6. Low tier public
   7. Private trash

   Basically the dropping population means a greatly shrunk pool of 18-year olds who can become college students. There has been for quite a few years now more slots at universities than Japanese 18-year olds to fill them.

   This means that you shouldn’t even want a job at the bottom places. Fortunately they won’t hire you because their hiring exists only to fulfill MEXT requirements to run their programs.

   5 and 6 aren’t going to want someone who isn’t a native speaker due to their student levels.

   1 have highly functional English language environments and hire people much like Western universities.

   2 and 3 will be highly influenced by the factors listed above. (Coincidentally, the people who they hire tend to leave rather quickly). They often (always?) have bilingual staff on hand.

   4 tend to not have highly functional environments for non-fluent speakers of Japanese.

   …

   And then factor in that

   (a) each universities don’t need many people in your discipline

   (b) dropping population of college students means dropping need for faculty period

   (c) Japan explicitly wants to increase the number of PhDs it hands out to raise the prestige of its better universities. This floods the market.

   All of this adds up to very low chances of employment.

   ​

   …

   I’m not in your discipline but I think the focus on something other than Europe / US actually increases the chances of getting something (but I don’t mean it makes the chances good), because a lot of postings are trying to reflect a more global perspective and they have a harder time generating local experts.

5. All of this is good advice. Also look at the positions that are advertised on JREC and try to publish. Most Japanese universities will not even look at your CV unless you have three publications. (Textbooks and conference presentations do not count), Most full time university jobs in Japan are now visiting positions.