Why are there so few visiting (research) associate professor position postings?
At many research universities, &quot;visiting assistant professor&quot; actually means &quot;postdoc with teaching duties&quot;. In other words, they are postdoc positions paid for by the department and financed at least in part through the revenues that come in through teaching.
The positions are not called &quot;postdoc&quot; because it is a &quot;faculty position&quot; so that the holder of the position is entitled to teach certain courses that only &quot;faculty&quot; can teach, and so that certain visa rules apply for candidates who come from abroad. The requirement for it to be a &quot;faculty&quot; position then prompted universities to call them &quot;X professor&quot;. But because these are not tenure-track positions, one needs a different prefix in front of &quot;professor&quot; from the usual &quot;assistant&quot; entry-level position, and so universities chose &quot;visiting assistant&quot; to make it clear that the position is temporary. &quot;Visiting&quot; in this context is not meant to imply that that person has a position somewhere else and is only temporarily &quot;visiting while traveling&quot;.
Given all of this, it is clear (hopefully) why there are no &quot;visiting associate professor&quot; positions.