University Teaching as a Second-Order Profession: What It Means

Most people think of a university teacher primarily as someone who stands in front of a lecture hall and delivers content. But that picture is incomplete. A university educator occupies a position that is fundamentally different from teachers at other levels of education – one that carries a dual responsibility: being a subject expert and a professional trainer of future professionals. This is what scholars and education theorists refer to when they describe university teaching as a second-order profession. Understanding what this means helps us appreciate not just who university teachers are, but what society actually asks of them.

What does “second-order profession” actually mean? 🔗

The term sounds abstract, but the idea is straightforward. A first-order profession is any established field of practice – medicine, law, engineering, architecture, social work. Professionals in these fields apply disciplinary knowledge directly to serve clients or society. A second-order profession is one that operates at a level above these fields – it shapes, trains, and reproduces professionals within them. University teaching sits squarely in this category.

When a professor teaches a cohort of medical students or law graduates, they are not simply conveying information. They are, in effect, producing the next generation of doctors and lawyers. The university teacher’s work therefore has a cascading impact on society that goes far beyond any individual classroom interaction. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, postsecondary teachers do not merely instruct – they develop curricula, supervise research, publish scholarly work, and collaborate with colleagues to shape entire degree programmes. These responsibilities place them in a different professional category from most other educators.

This is also why the concept of second-order teaching has gained attention in academic research. Researchers at ScienceDirect note that teacher educators – a closely related category – operate in a second-order role because their work is to teach the act of teaching itself, rather than simply teaching a subject. The same logic applies more broadly to university educators across disciplines: they are not just subject-matter experts who happen to teach; they are professionals who are responsible for the formation of other professionals.

The unique nature of higher education: training future professionals 🔗

What sets higher education apart from earlier stages of schooling is its explicit professional mandate. Secondary school teachers prepare students for adult life broadly speaking. University teachers prepare students for specific professional roles in specific fields. This difference in purpose creates a fundamentally different kind of teaching responsibility.

Take a civil engineering programme. A university lecturer in structural mechanics is not just teaching stress calculations – they are forming the habits of mind, analytical rigour, and professional judgment that will determine how safely a bridge is designed twenty years from now. The same is true in nursing, social work, business, or teacher education. Research published in a peer-reviewed study on second-career academics highlights that professionals brought into higher education are valued precisely because they can connect classroom learning to real-world professional contexts, helping students develop the attitudes and behaviours expected within their future fields.

This training function is not incidental – it is central to the mission of higher education. The university teacher must therefore be far more than a content deliverer. They are, in the language of education theory, architects of professional identity. They model the standards of the discipline, mentor students through ambiguous problems, and guide them toward the ethical frameworks and critical thinking skills that their professions demand.

The need for research expertise: being a scholar in your discipline 🔗

A core feature of what makes university teaching a second-order profession is that educators cannot rely on static knowledge. The disciplines they teach are living fields – constantly evolving through discovery, debate, and application. This means that a university teacher must not only know their subject deeply, but must actively participate in its ongoing development.

The University of Portsmouth’s guidance on academic careers makes this expectation explicit: for most disciplines, a doctoral qualification is a prerequisite for university teaching because it demonstrates the ability to conduct original research and communicate findings within an academic community. Beyond entry-level credentials, academics are expected to attend conferences, publish in peer-reviewed journals, apply for research grants, and contribute to the research profile of their institutions throughout their careers.

This expectation exists for a good reason. A university teacher who is not engaged in active scholarship risks teaching outdated knowledge. Worse, they lose the capacity to model what it means to think at the frontier of a discipline – which is precisely what students in higher education need to see and learn. UCAS describes higher education teaching professionals as those who deliver lectures, undertake research, and write journal articles and books in their chosen field – all as part of a single, integrated professional role.

Boyer’s framework: four forms of scholarship 🔗

The relationship between research and teaching in universities was given influential shape by education scholar Ernest Boyer. In his landmark work Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (1990), Boyer argued that the work of university faculty should be understood as encompassing four distinct but overlapping forms of scholarship. As documented in Columbia University’s faculty resource on scholarly teaching, these are: the scholarship of discovery (original research), the scholarship of integration (connecting ideas across disciplines), the scholarship of application (linking knowledge to real-world problems), and the scholarship of teaching (systematic inquiry into learning itself).

Boyer’s framework was significant because it challenged the assumption that teaching and research are in competition. Instead, it positioned them as mutually reinforcing activities. A professor who researches brings fresh, relevant, and nuanced knowledge into the classroom. And a professor who reflects seriously on teaching generates knowledge that benefits the entire academic community. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), which grew from Boyer’s work, is now a recognised field of inquiry – defined as systematic investigation into student learning that advances the practice of teaching in higher education.

Bridging theory and practice: how university teachers contribute to knowledge development 🔗

One of the defining tensions in higher education is the gap between theory and practice. Students learn theoretical frameworks in lecture halls; they must eventually apply them in professional contexts that are messy, unpredictable, and complex. One of the key roles of a university teacher – especially as a second-order professional – is to actively narrow this gap.

This is not simply a matter of including practical examples in lectures. It involves designing learning experiences that give students genuine opportunities to apply what they are learning. Harvard’s Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning documents how medical educators at Harvard Medical School use case simulations to immerse students in clinical scenarios, requiring them to pool knowledge, make decisions under uncertainty, and reflect on their reasoning – all skills that are essential in professional practice but difficult to develop through passive instruction alone.

University teachers also contribute to knowledge development in ways that extend beyond the classroom. Through their research, they generate new insights that feed back into professional practice. A social work researcher might study the effectiveness of community intervention models; a legal scholar might analyse the implications of new legislation; a public health academic might evaluate the outcomes of a vaccination programme. In each case, the university teacher is not just passing on existing knowledge – they are actively generating it.

Work-integrated learning and the theory-practice relationship 🔗

One structural approach through which universities help close the theory-practice gap is work-integrated learning (WIL) – a pedagogical model that brings real-world professional experience directly into academic programmes. Research published in a peer-reviewed study on WIL in Swedish higher education describes how vocational and professional programmes use WIL to enable what the authors call a “practification” of theoretical knowledge – allowing students to encounter working life during their studies and to develop a clearer sense of professional identity before they graduate.

In this model, the university teacher’s role becomes that of a bridge-builder. They must understand both the theoretical demands of their academic discipline and the practical realities of the professional field that their students are entering. This dual fluency is not easy to develop and maintain, but it is central to what it means to teach professionally at the university level.

The implications: why this matters for how we understand university teaching 🔗

Recognising university teaching as a second-order profession has practical implications for how academic roles are designed, evaluated, and supported. If we expect university teachers to train future professionals, then their own professional development cannot be limited to subject-matter expertise alone. They must also develop pedagogical skills, stay engaged with research, and maintain connections to professional practice in their field.

A study published in the journal Professional Development in Education found that academics in teaching-focused roles often lack structured development support and face ambiguous institutional expectations around scholarship – which can undermine both the quality of teaching and the professional standing of the role itself. This highlights the need for universities to treat teaching as a genuinely scholarly activity, worthy of recognition, investment, and systematic reflection.

The second-order nature of university teaching also explains why the role carries such significance for society at large. Every cohort of students that a university teacher trains will go on to make decisions – medical, legal, technical, educational – that affect real people. The quality of that training is not a private matter between professor and student. It is a public good, and it deserves to be treated as such.

What do you think? Does your understanding of what university teachers do change when you consider them as second-order professionals rather than subject-matter experts who happen to teach? And should universities do more to formally recognise and develop the pedagogical expertise of their academic staff, alongside their research outputs?

References

1. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/postsecondary-teachers.htm
2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/teacher-educators
3. https://www.mdpi.com/2813-4346/3/3/38
4. https://myport.port.ac.uk/my-course/careers-support/your-options/career-guides/teaching-career-guide/getting-into-higher-education-teaching
5. https://www.ucas.com/explore/career-path/9.2
6. https://soler.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/DBER%20Guide%20Figs/SOLER_FacultyGuide_062920.pdf
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholarship_of_teaching_and_learning
8. https://www.vpal.harvard.edu/bridging-practice-and-theory-professional-classroom
9. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508487.2023.2294462
10. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14703297.2022.2132981