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Why does one need to be a certified teacher to teach at secondary level and lower, but not at tertiary level?
Wikipedia article on Certified Teacher
In most countries one must be licensed to teach at pre-school, primary or secondary level. The process for acquiring the license typically involves taking and passing an exam. Example for the Philippines:

Licensed teachers in the Philippines are required to pass the Licensure Examination for Teacher given by the Professional Regulation Commission. Once the teacher passes the exam, they will be given the title "Licensed Professional Teacher". The title "LPT" is used to append after the licensed teacher's name. However, anyone who is not a licensed teacher but uses "LPT" will be punished by the law.

Why doesn't this apply to university-level lecturers or professors? If it's because we can safely assume that lecturers and professors know how to teach, but not those teaching at more elementary level, why is this assumption safe? The curriculum of the teaching exam (example) says an objective is "to equip teachers and school leaders with the knowledge and professional expertise necessary to teach and manage educational programmes in challenging school environments". Why don't lecturers and professors need these skills too?

Presumably for the same reason you don't need a teaching licence to be a trainer for a professional certification - we require certification for people to interact with children, but have much less stringent requirements on who provides training for adults (presumably under the assumption that those are less vulnerable).

That said, some "certifications" do exist. Sweden requires faculty to do a certain amount of pedagogical coursework either prior to getting employed as a tenured teacher of shortly thereafter. Austrian habilitation requirements also entail a (very light-weight) evaluation of pedagogical competency.

As a current college student in the US, I can confirm that assumption is NOT safe

More cynically, if it was required, nobody would do it.

I know someone who is developing a curriculum to present to a university that will be targeted towards teaching their professors how to actually teach.  There can be a huge disconnect between highly knowledgeable professors and professors who are skilled at teaching what they know.

Recently, a number of certification programs have been created for college instructors.  The certification in the UK is often required of newly hired lecturers.  In the US, ACUE offers a certificate in "Effective College Teaching."

Because most of the teaching at uni is nothing more than an afterthought that postgrads get  coerced into doing for a tuition discount

Anecdotal evidence shows that good profs mostly (i.e. well into masters level) teach the stuff their own good profs taught, in much the same manner. The problem being that todays students are much worse in math. ;)

One issue is that at higher levels, students are able to mostly compensate for bad instruction with either hard work or good study groups or both.  At lower levels, the most effective way to overcome bad instruction is either by switching teachers (which might not be an option) or getting a tutor (but tutors are typically pretty expensive.)

@DrakeP as a former school student I can confirm the assumption that “certified teachers” can teach is also frequently incorrect.

One huge difference is "classroom management."  At university, you don't need any.  In ELHI, it's the most important thing.  Got two girls chattering in the back row?  In 8th grade you have to manage that.  At university, the nearby students will take care of that problem for you.

When I went to university some 30 years ago (I believe the same happens today) I had some teachers/professors with terrible pedagogic skills, awful rhetoric and horrible drawing ability; however, they were the top in their fields, and I paid very close attention to what they said... but that only happened because I was an adult-ish, so I could get my priorities right. Now try to put someone with horrible pedagogic skills in a preschool room...

@DanRomik yeah, it is not like a certificate in teaching is a magical wand guaranteeing quality. Every teacher we probably had at school was certified but our personal experience would attest to the variance in teaching quality we all experienced.

@DanRomik subject matter teaching might not be the most important thing K12 teachers do.  For example, a good high school physics teacher should be able to confidently, competently, authoritatively, and compassionately discuss menstruation with a student going through menarchy.  This is not expected of university professors.

@emory okay. I never made any claims about what is the most important part of a schoolteacher’s job, so I’m not sure why you are addressing your comment to me, but thanks.

@emory unfortunately more and more parents expect teachers to replace them as parents too. Just one of the many reasons why I'm glad that the next children I will raise will be my own.

I think the reason could be that at the beginning of education, the methodology and teaching style are much more important than the content: children have to learn how to learn before they can learn specific things.
The further along in their student life, content gets more and more important, and it is assumed that students will have learned how to learn by themselves.
In tertiary education, it is the opposite than in primary education: the content is what matters most. So teachers there rather need to be experts in the topic they teach instead of expert educators (but ideally both).

I think this is a good answer, but would be better if a couple of "it is believed that"s were added. Personally I feel that teaching methodology is very important at the university level, but our culture might not.

@Trunk I completely agree, I personally don't think that the status quo is necessarily good as is. And on a side note, it is very hard to do anything about a lack of teaching skills in many cases: in Germany, the vast majority of professors are appointed for life, once you convinced the people in charge that you are capable of teaching students, you can pretty much be bad at it afterwards.

@GregMartin I think that believes comes at least in part from some limits on how long it takes to train someone as a teacher. If you put this bound at somewhat arbitrary 5 years, then for a primary school teacher they will have mastered the content pretty much before they even start so you can spend the entire 5 years on pedagogy. For a university level teacher just mastering the content takes already most of the 5 years. If you were to ask for another 5 years of pedagogy on top there would be no university teachers because it would take to long/ be to expensive to become one.

That argument is hyperbolic: there are plenty of choices between 5 years of pedagogy and none whatsoever. Moreover, the majority of my teaching (for example) is courses for first- and second-year university students; I had seven years of training after my second undergraduate year, which is more than ample time to have included pedagogy as well as additional mathematical content.

"in Germany, the vast majority of professors are appointed for life" true, but a school teacher with permanent contract is also extremely hard to kick out. And, even if a school manages to fire a teacher because of low teaching performance, that teacher doesn't lose the right to work as teacher. (But then, maybe Germany is outside the many countries here because of facultas docendi and venia legendi)

Because, historically, the purpose of universities was not teaching, but scholarship.
The students were more like apprentices who showed up to take part in the research and debates, expected to eventually become scholars as well.
Gradually, over the centuries, this has expanded, but the idea remains that the academics are there primarily to do research and to be experts in their field, and that students go to university not to be "taught" in the same sense as in high school, but to be in the company of some of the world's foremost experts. To be exposed to their ideas, observe how they conduct research, and learn on the way.
This idea is obviously in tension with the current model of having thousands and thousands of students come through, most of them not very interested in scholarship for its own sake. Most students expect to be taught, and many are entirely unaware of the research activity of their professors. There are simply too many for any sort of apprenticeship relationship to be viable.
We end up with two competing models of what a university should be like. Students arrive with one idea of what they are getting into, while academics are trained under a different set of assumptions. This does sound rather like a recipe for disaster, but somehow we keep bumbling along.

But were primary and secondary teachers typically required to be licensed historically?  Or was this a rather recent development?

@Kimball Here's an article on the history of US teaching certifications.  I haven't read it all, but from the intro I surmise the basic answer to your question is "yes, certification has been around pretty much since the colonial days at least".

Content Knowledge vs Pedagogical Skill
Ben Orlin (the author of Math with Bad Drawings) wrote fairly eloquently on this a few years ago.  His thesis is that instructors are people who (broadly speaking) needs expertise in two somewhat unrelated areas:

Content knowledge: an instructor must have mastery of the field that they are teaching.  An instructor should know the details of the topic that they are teaching, and should be able to reconstruct or recall those details immediately.

Pedagogical/andragogical skill: an instructor must have an ability to effectively communicate ideas and maintain engagement.  An instructor should know how to keep students interested in what they are teaching, and what kinds of experiences are likely to lead to generation and retention of knowledge.

Orlin further argues that the traditional viewpoint of education is that instructors of young students needn't have a great deal of content knowledge, but must be masters of pedagogy; while instructors of older students must have a great deal of content knowledge, but needn't be great pedagogs.

While Orlin tries to dismantle this traditional point of view some, I think that it is an accurate description of the current status quo.
With that in mind, licensure requirements for primary and secondary education (but not tertiary) are somewhat explained by what the licensure ensures:  (1) that the instructor knows how to work with kids, (2) that they are not dangerous to children, and (3) that they have the minimal content knowledge required to get the job done.
Of these, (1) is probably the most critical.  As an undergraduate, I underwent a teacher certification (to teach middle school and high school mathematics).  Nearly all of the courses I took for that certification were related to pedagogy.  Thus my license certifies that I have the pedagogical knowledge necessary to teach a class.
At higher levels, where content knowledge is more highly prized, an MA or PhD is generally sufficient to act in lieu of a license.
Children vs Adults
Another compelling argument for licensure is that students in a primary or secondary education setting are not adults, and need to be protected (by the state).  This is doubly important in a society where student are required by the state to enroll in school (up to a certain age or level of education).
If a government required that students enroll in school, but then did nothing to ensure that the education those students are receiving is adequate, then one can imagine that this requirement would quickly evaporate as a kind of "unfunded mandate".
Children have very little choice about education.  Most children (in places where licensure is required; or, at least, in the US and western Europe) attend publicly funded schools, where their teachers are employed by the state (i.e. by a municipal government, by a state government, by a provincial government, etc).  Because the state is responsible for educating students, and because the students don't have much of a say in the matter, the state takes on the responsibility of ensuring that the instructors can do the job.  This is typically done through licensure.
In contrast, adults are generally not required to attend post-secondary institutions, and if they choose to attend, they generally have more choice regarding which institution they attend (even a student with poor grades in the US typically has a number of community colleges and state colleges to choose from).
This lack of a requirement combined with the choice of institution puts significantly less pressure on the state to ensure that instructors are adequate (and, as above, it is assumed that they needn't be adequate, anyway), hence licensure is far less common.
The Role of the Academy
In the American system (and, I presume, elsewhere, as well), primary and secondary education are meant to ensure that the citizenry has a basic foundation of knowledge and skill; and primary and secondary institutions are meant to provide instruction, and have no other role in society.  You attend such an institution in order to be taught, and the people teaching you have no job other than providing instruction.
By contrast, university, college, and (even) community college instructors typically have a much broader job description.  The primary job of a member of the faculty at a university is generally "conduct research and produce papers".  These folk are not (usually) hired to teach classes, but do so as part of training others to take their place—higher education is an apprenticeship program for researchers.
Because licensure is largely about ensuring some instructional quality (rather than content area knowledge), there is little call for university faculty to be licensed.  Again, an advanced degree is usually enough to ensure that a minimal threshold is hit.

I'll note that I am specifically avoiding the issue of "academic freedom", as it is kind of thorny, nuanced, and perhaps somewhat nebulous to an outsider.  However, that does play a huge role in the academy.

Teachers have plenty of other jobs than instructions. Sports, debate, music, plays, glee club. Who maintains the schools cricket pitch? A teacher. Who does the fund raising? A teacher

@NeilMeyer "Sports, debate, music, plays, glee club," and so on are still instructional duties.  They are not as highly structured, but the teachers are still teaching, i.e. imparting knowledge to students.  Teachers are often involved in fund raising, but it is almost never a part of the job description.  I've never worked in a place where teachers were responsible for maintaining the cricket pitch (or, since this is America, the football field---that is the job of the groundskeepers / janitorial staff).  Of course, this may be regionally inflected, which is why I tried to emphasize "the US".

Where I'm from teachers start working at the school two weeks before any child first appears. Just because a child has a holiday does not mean his teachers have one.

@NeilMeyer Yes, but this does not contradict anything I have said:  it is expected that those two weeks are spent preparing for instruction.  Lesson plans don't materialize out of thin air.  Primary and secondary instructors are hired to teach.  University faculty are hired to research.  Both sets of folk have other duties, but these are their primary jobs.

When I taught for the public school system, my job description basically boiled down to "Xander will teach classes."  Students were present for 180 state-mandated days per year.  I was paid for 190 days, with the extra ten days contractually devoted to lesson planning and course preparation (and the reality is that good teachers go above and beyond their contracted time to prepare---but that is neither here nor there).

Well when I say work I'm using the term loosely. The first week or so of a new term is just spent ironing out red tape and dealing with a slew of clerical and admin issues but still that has to be done.

@NeilMeyer Okay... so what is your point?  My overall argument (in that portion of a longer discussion) is that primary and secondary ed faculty are hired to teach, whereas university faculty are hired to research.  Both groups of faculty have "other duties as assigned" (committee work, service, clerical work, etc), but that doesn't negate my thesis in the least.

My point is that the premise that a teacher at a school is only there to teach is in my regions case at least not true. There is a part of a teachers job that does not involve children at all.

I never said "only".  I said "primarily".  You seem to be arguing against something I never said.

University professors primary duty is teaching, from undergrad to postgrad. Doing "science" is mostly deferred to PhD students, because whatever time remains is blocked by administrating the science part. The only thing they are ever fired for is neglecting their teaching. Profs want to produce many papers because the university increases their income if they do. Stupid idea, but thats politics.

@Karl That is simply not true at most US universities, and is quite cynical, too.  At US universities, most faculty teach very few classes (my PhD advisor typically taught one quarter-long class per year; there were other faculty in the department who never taught (except for the occasional graduate seminar).  Tenure is secured primarily through one's publication history; teaching evaluations tend not to have much impact.  Classes at most American universities are largely taught by adjuncts, postdocs, and graduate students.

@XanderHenderson Well, I'm reporting from Europe, or Germany, specifically. Of course we don't do general education at our universities like the US do at colleges, which is basically secondary education. You're a chemistry student: no sports or language or history course you take will ever turn up on your diploma. Those are taught by  basically anybody who seems qualified, at low wages. TA's, retired profs, idealists, ... Curious: when you say "most" US unis, can you exclude some?

@Karl I say "most" as a hedge.  If I said "all", I am sure that someone could come up with some private, for-profit, evangelical Christian institution calling itself a university as a counter-example.  To the best of my knowledge, anything categorized as a doctoral or masters university on this list is likely to require research for tenure, and is going to be a major component of a faculty job description.  Many (though far from all) of the bachelorette institutions also emphasize research,

e.g. small private liberal arts institutions like the members of the Claremont Colleges Consortium expect faculty to engage in research, though there is a greater emphasis on teaching and instruction.

@XanderHenderson That's an interesting viewpoint, I never thought about the small private college I went to doing research, the professors certainly didn't talk about it.  I don't think we had a PHD program.  I think teaching was almost all they did.  I'd be interested in hearing more about it.  Secondary education has two goals, increasing knowledge (research) and passing on knowledge (teaching).  I always thought of the latter as being the most important.

@JasonGoemaat At most of the SPLA colleges I am familiar with, research is very much secondary, and teaching is the primary component of the job, but there is still generally an expectation that some research be produced (typically 2-3 pubs before tenure).  Often, this research ends up being either (a) undergraduate research projects, published in journals for that kind of thing, or (b) education research, based on experiments or observations conducted in classes they teach.  But even here, at a small CC, I have colleagues who publish (and I still plan to get something out).

I don't know if this is universally true (suspect it is) so this is a US centric answer.
In the US, the governments (state and federal) have decreed, based on general (not universal) consensus, that elementary education and usually secondary education, are universal and mandatory.
Having decreed that students must attend schools they take on responsibility to guarantee its quality up to a point, though imperfectly it turns out.
But higher education is voluntary so there is no need to regulate it quite as closely, though there are many regulations even there.
I don't claim the system is perfect and it certainly has holes. At the moment education at all levels has become highly politicized, though the trend has been in place for decades.
For a parent, who must send their children to schools, and don't have a huge number of options about which school, it is necessary to the "common good" that the standards be high.
In the end, though, teacher certification flows pretty naturally from the mandatory nature of universal education. It also reduces cost to some extent at the local level, since individual schools don't need to certify teachers to the same extent that universities do, though many do impose a probationary period on new teachers. Such a probationary period is less formal, however, than the tenure process of universities.

This is the correct answer to the actual question - "why is it so".

The main reason is that tertiary students are (usually) legal adults. Much of the certification process for a primary or secondary teacher is not pedagogical as much as it is child-care-related, because teachers stand in loco parentis for students during school hours. Governments want to be able to reassure parents that it's safe to send their kids to school all day. (This isn't 100% perfect of course, but every check helps.) The purpose of this kind of certification is to ensure a minimum standard of character, legal status, and ability to manage children; not anything specifically to do with teaching. This isn't as much of a concern for tertiary education, in which students are assumed to be adults, competent to judge safety for themselves, and thus no longer require teachers to act in loco parentis. (Having known college students, this is of course in the nature of a legal fiction, but... here we are.)
Additionally, pedagogical training is seen as less important for tertiary teachers, because the students are assumed to be adults who actually want to be learning the material, so they are able and willing to struggle through some amount of sub-standard teaching on their own. This is in contrast to primary and secondary students, who may or may not be interested but are not automatically assumed to have the ability to learn things despite a bad teacher. At least in the US, with the steadily decreasing quality of secondary schools and the corresponding increased need for good introductory general education courses at the tertiary level, this is beginning to change (but not fast enough).

The safety and well being of students is just as important at a tertiary institutions as in primary or secondary ones. If parents don't assurances that the kids are safe at uni then the fact that they are 18 is not going to convince them to send the kid there

@NeilMeyer: Right, but, once the kid's 18, they can (theoretically, at least) go even if their parents don't want them to, an option not available earlier in life.

You can also leave school at 16 and go do a trade. I'm not sure if you can leave school at 16 without your parents consent though. My point being campus security is a big concern at tertiary institutions as well as schools.

At the tertiary level, I have no legal requirement to act in loco parentis.  That is a huge difference from primary and secondary ed.

The difference is that once the student is a legal adult, the school is no longer obligated to make sure it's a safe environment for children; as a matter of law, the student is now considered competent to evaluate safety for himself. Most tertiary schools do still provide some kind of in-house security, but in loco parentis responsibilities are no longer the province of the teachers.

How does this legal reasoning square with the fact that due to vagaries of the calendar, many students, even "normal" ones, start college or university as 17-year-olds (if only for a few weeks or months)?

@nanoman So what? I rode to school on my own bike since I was seven, which was an 8km commute on public roads later in high school. Or took a public bus. Others came by train. Kids are responsible people, too. They don't need 110% percent supervision, at least not in Europe.

@nanoman A large number of my students are high school students who take classes at the college for dual enrollment credit.  As a faculty of the college, I am not responsible for acting in loco parentis.  For the purposes of attending my classes, they are adults.  The requirements of FERPA are also different, e.g. I do not report a student's grades to their high school or parents.  While they are not legal adults, they are adults for the purposes of the educational system.

Many of the answers given are correct, but another point of view that I haven’t seen expressed so far is that the implied premise behind your question is simply not correct. That premise being that because university professors are not “licensed teachers” according to some arbitrary technical definition of “passing an exam by some licensing body”, that means the training they undergo on the way to becoming professors is somehow less rigorous than than of licensed teachers.
Professors hold a PhD or other terminal degree. They undergo an extensive training program of 4-7 years beyond their undergraduate degree (which includes passing several exams, although that is the least of it) that prepares them to be successful in many careers including higher education. This is far more training than it takes to become a “licensed teacher”.
It may be reasonable to ask why that training that professors receive does not include a formal induction into the science of teaching but instead usually takes the form of an apprenticeship (being a TA etc), and several of the other answers here give valid arguments explaining that. But your question, if read literally, actually focuses on the licensing aspect and seems to suggest that not being “licensed” means you have somehow undergone a lower level of vetting than someone who is licensed. That suggestion is simply not true; professors undergo a much stricter vetting, it’s just that the vetting isn’t by a “licensing body” and is not referred to as “being licensed”. The difference is mostly semantic and does not translate into being less qualified to perform the actual job.
Finally, a comment by @DrakeP, who said that “as a current college student […] I can confirm that assumption [that professors know how to teach] is NOT safe” caught my attention since it seems to imply that what I said above isn’t correct. I would counter that by saying that as a former primary and secondary school student, I can confirm that the assumption that licensed teachers are effective at teaching is also not safe, and frequently incorrect.

I think this answer hits the nail on the head!

And having seen one of those courses called "Effective Teaching Practices for University Professors" that ends in a university teaching certificate, I highly doubt that the rate of inept university teachers would decrease if every professor also had to acquire that certificate...

There's a significant difference between being a TA for a few years and formal training in teaching. The idea that a PhD prepares someone to teach is... not a given (with the obvious exception of PhDs in education). I've had quite a few professors that were brilliant researchers but rather poor teachers. The two skills aren't necessarily correlated.

@JSLavertu see the last paragraph of my answer. There are also schoolteachers who are poor teachers, and more than a few schoolteachers who have poor mastery of the subjects they teach, which I imagine is a much rarer problem among professors. And there are people in all walks of life who are bad at their respective jobs. Unless you can point to evidence showing the problem is worse for professors, this argument that professors aren’t getting adequate training is unconvincing.

Are you confident with this answer? It implies that professors can become secondary school teachers without needing to get certified. I have not heard of that happening, although I have also not heard of that being required either.

@Allure what part of the answer implies such a thing? I don’t follow what you’re saying.

@DanRomik the second paragraph says This is far more training than it takes to become a “licensed teacher”, implying that professors don't need training because they already know more than enough - sort of like if you hold a PhD in math then you don't need to prove you can pass the math SAT.

@Allure professors also receive far more training than beauticians or bus drivers, it doesn’t mean they can do those jobs with their professor training, it just means the training to become a professor takes much longer and requires more effort than the training to become a beautician or a bus driver.

@DanRomik exactly - but then what implied premise are you referring to?

@Allure just what I wrote in the question. The premise that being “licensed” means a higher or more rigorously vetted level of qualification than a course of studies that does not involve being licensed. The premise is only implied because it is not stated explicitly, but without it the question you are asking doesn’t make much sense.

@DanRomik but it's a different field right? We can say a person with a PhD knows how to do research, but not necessarily teaching, driving buses, or cosmetics. It doesn't mean they can't learn those things, they surely can, but they still haven't done so. I don't understand your meaning.

@Allure my claim is that professors are qualified to teach at the university level, due to the extensive training they receive as part of their PhD. They are not all equally good at it obviously, and some are in fact not very good at all, but at least the amount and type of training they receive is appropriate.

I'd argue that the premise you assign to the question isn't actually part of it. The question does not not imply that professor's overall training is less rigourous, but rather specifically that professor's teaching training is less rigorous. Which it obviously is. No one is arguing that professors aren't highly trained, just that their training in one field isn't very relevant when discussing another vaguely related field.

They do. It is just the time cost of acquiring all these skills proper is deemed too high to be applied to the entirety of academia, so instead we rely on learning by doing, somewhat ironically.
There is a simple lack of resources to have enough people with deep understanding of the subject who are also good educators. The knowledge this specific is almost forbidden - one can not simply get it from a neatly dressed providers with diplomas and certificates plastering the cabinet walls. No, one has to venture to the deep end to some complete freak who is apparently a mad genius. This is a role model we all grew up with and all aspire to. /s
On a more serious note, there are resources available, and universities do utilize academic development programmes. But they are not compulsory - in a sense, for the same reason professors do not cover all the teaching duties with their highly skilled labor and there are TAs.
Another reason there is such reliance on the teaching experience instead of a formal pedagogical education is that at secondary level and below, there are standard-issued textbooks. One of the big challenges for a tertiary-level educator is creating their own course. Now, I sincerely do not know why the guidelines on that are not provided and are not compulsory material...

The fact that teaching cannot get you tenure demotivates many in academia from increasing  there teaching skills. You are not penalized for doing it poorly and you are not rewarded for doing it well either. No wonder it is the last thing people work on.

The stereotype of the unworldly professor who has an amazing grasp of technical material but seems barely able to handle day-to-day tasks like combing their hair and purchasing new footwear probably doesn't describe the majority of professors, but might be reasonable percentage (>10%) in some fields.

First of all it's worth clarifying that generally you do need to be certified in order to teach at the tertiary level. That certification is your Ph.D. (or doctorate or whatever your country calls those things).
That certificate includes a test whether you can communicate clearly because you (typically) have to write and defend your thesis to get a doctorate.
Additionally, in many locations a compulsory part of obtaining a Ph.D. degree is to be involved in tertiary education and run tutorials and seminars (or practicals). There usually is no explicit test on how well a job you did but it is part of your supervised work and some training and evaluation typically exists.
You are correct, that there are typically no formal checks on teaching ability and university teachers will typically have received no formal pedagogical training. And that is indeed different from elementary and secondary teaching certificates. Answering why that is the case, might involve historical developments and practical differences between tertiary and secondary teaching as the other answers nicely discuss. But it's also worth considering the following hypothetical question: do you think that instituting a formal pedagogy and teaching check would reduce the number of inept tertiary teachers in a way that works significantly better than the current system? Based on my personal experience I doubt it: I have observed similarly inept 'teaching' on the secondary level as I have on the university level. And I suspect that's exactly the question that a university (or country) would have to ask itself when deciding on changing the current system.

A PhD is a research qualification; I would hesitate to call it a "teaching qualification", despite the fact that many (but not all) PhDs will have undertaken teaching during their degrees.

I am not calling a PhD a teaching qualification. I am saying the in order to teach you need a certificate called a PhD.

Others have commented on this, but perhaps not as strongly. I do wonder if this question is an example of the Bulverism fallacy; namely asking "Why is X true" without establishing whether X is indeed true in the first place.
However, my knowledge is limited to my own circumstances, which relate to the UK; I admit I don't know the equivalent situation in the US or other countries. So I will give you the benefit of the doubt. :)
But, to answer your question, at least in my specific circumstances, it is simply not true that no qualification is required to teach at university. What is true however is that the specific qualification(s) required are not necessarily identical to the qualifications required to teach at primary education (nor should they be).
E.g. in my case, to be appointed lecturer at my current university (and I assume in most UK universities?) you are expected to either "have obtained", or "to have a reasonable expectation of obtaining within your probation period", an 'academic teaching' qualification such as the Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) or similar. This is a qualification, which, in theory at least, demonstrates your proven ability to teach in a variety of formats and methodologies, documents your experience and track record in doing so, knowledge of up-to-date pedagogical research and theory, and backing from other academics who can vouch for your application/fellowship. Furthermore, as you advance in your career towards becoming a professor, you are similarly expected to obtain 'higher' versions of such qualifications (e.g. 'Senior Fellowship', 'Principal Fellowship' etc).
Secondly, even prior to having obtained a formal qualification, in theory one does not simply walk into Mordor academia and start supervising students with no prior experience! To be considered for a teaching position, you still need to demonstrate in very practical terms that you have engaged in significant teaching and supervision in the past in your CV. For a junior position, this typically involves having engaged in private tutoring / lab practicals / presentations / designed your own modules / etc etc. (but I agree, this is not an argument against the need for a formal qualification, it's simply a more pragmatic way of addressing the issue).

One might also investigate whether the other half of the claim is true (particularly concerning teachers of secondary schools)

This is also affected by a supply and demand issue in the academic labour market
The other answers here do a great job of explaining the reasons for this omission from a purely pedagogical viewpoint.  To wit: since tertiary instruction is directed at adults, it requires greater focus on specialised content and less focus on specialised instruction methods.  However, in addition to this reason, there is also a complementary reason rooted in the supply and demand dynamics of the academic profession.
Put in simple terms, people who have already spent years earning higher-degrees in specialised fields (Masters, PhD, etc.) generally have greater career options than people just leaving school, so they are less likely to be willing to do a long teaching certification (on top of their existing degrees) in order to obtain a teaching job.  There are other attractive options for many higher-degree graduates, and while the academic job market is one attractive option, it would be less so if it required the candidate to do a three or four year teaching degree ---or some similar certification--- prior to starting.
As has been pointed out, there are some European countries that require a short "habilitation" or similar prior either to academic teaching or a senior professorship.  These requirements are usually done in a circumstance where the person is already employed and being paid for their time, and they work on their certification while already employed at the university.  For example, in Germany, the people working on their "habilitation" are postdocs or junior professors who are already doing paid research work.  If they were instead required to attend university as (unpaid) full-time students for several more years, this would be a much less attractive option.
Even if the universities decided they wanted teaching degrees, and even if they could overcome this impediment as a whole (e.g., as higher-degree graduates become overabundant relative to demand), one can imagine that a first-mover issue that would arise for the first university that requires its incoming faculty to get a three to four-year teaching degree prior to teaching.  It is likely that such a university would rule out a large proportion of possible applicants for positions, because the prospect of doing another degree is highly burdensome and there are good alternative options.  This would probably cause a significant loss of quality staff for the university.

Are you confident about the answer? I'm under the impression most teachers are paid by their school while doing the teaching degree, and are bonded to serve the school for some time afterwards.

@Allure Not in the US.  Indeed, my teaching certification was (more or less) an extra year of classes tacked onto my bachelors program (very few certification seeking students at my bachelors institution graduated in the normative four years), plus an extra half year of "internship" (student teaching), which I also had to pay for.  And the internship was a 12 credit hour, non-degree graduate class, which cost three times what undergraduate classes cost.  I paid to complete the requirements for licensure. :/

This is not atypical in the US.  You pay for your degree (most students work in addition to attending classes), and you pay for licensure.  On the other hand, you are not required to teach at any particular school (or to teach at all).  There are programs which will help pay for this education and certification (e.g. AmeriCorps has some programs) if you agree to teach at (for example) an inner-city school for some period of time post-certification, but my impression is that most student don't go that route.

@Allure: My understanding is that some teaching programs would have a final year where the student works in a school as a kind of "intern" (and this is not universal), but the majority of the degree would be before this.  I suspect there is probably wide variation in rules across countries, schools, public vs private, etc.

Well it used to be you needed a PhD. In the process of getting a PhD, you will have learned what you need to learn. Unfortunately, now a lot of classes are not taught by PhDs.

Just out of curiosity: what kind of schools are that, where non-academic staff are teaching, and at what level? I'm assuming this us in the US?

Just for comparison, in Germany, the primary subject you're incribed for is only taught by professors, and academics on tenure track. (Outside of the natural sciences, there are a lot of lecturers who retire from tenure track, at lousy pay, but they all have their doctorates.) Other subjects (language classes, sports, whatnot) generally not, but they are never graded and never turn up on your diploma.

PhDs are not now and have never been teaching certificates.

@Karl FWIW, in Russia TAs often act like substitute teachers, and both universities and secondary schools would sometimes have classes conducted by someone without a PhD or a teaching certificate. Essentially the same way a professor might ask a student to prepare the talk, except that in some extreme cases, you get a PhD student running the class for half a semester (instead of more typical TA duties like grading), with their advisor formally being a lecturer for that class. This is rare for big "general-audience" courses like calculus but happens with more advanced subjects quite a bit.

@Lodinn But advanced subjects are the classes profs usually love to give! Such a great possibility to show off, and of course to bring students into your group. I actually had just one prof who gave a lecture which he completely let the students (mostly phd candidates) hold. Everybody got 1.5h over the semester to introduce one special topic from his list. Of course he was always present, asking nasty questions.


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Is it ethical to do paid literature searches of research journals for other students?
Is it unethical to research journals for other students?
For example, a student is researching gifted students and their subsequent ACT/SAT scores.  Then:

Would it be unethical for me to research educational journals and give the student the title of articles that pertain to their research?
Would it be unethical for me to charge for this?

Is that student then going to mislead others into thinking that they found the articles themselves? e.g. are you doing this for someone who has an assignment to write a term paper and cite journal articles that pertain to their topic, and they are expected to do the literature search themselves?

And to add on further to what @Keelan mentions about impracticality, there is the added issue that the person doing the actual research may not know what they don't know, or may not know what they need to know until the future. A lot of parallel discovery takes place when reading the literature, and often relevance becomes apparent some time in the future, when a question comes up and you think "hmm, I seem to remember reading something about that, let me try to find it..." - this isn't possible if someone else did the reading.

Tagged this with "[tag:cheating]" under the assumption that you're asking about what's appropriate when doing research in the context of, say, a report done as part of a class.  However, it'd help if you could clarify the context.

You should definitely charge for your time if you want. But I just don't see why that person would use you and not use public librarians who do this job for free (because they're being paid by their public library). This job may become an issue if the student misled you about the type of work he wants you for. So be sure to explain what you're willing to do, and not do, and require an upfront cash deposit to make sure he's serious about paying you and not just wasting your time. If the student refuses, you'll know he wasn't completely truthful.

Research librarians do this as their full-time job. (Regular librarians can be great resources, but are not specialized in literature searches).

What would be unethical is for the other person to misrepresent work that you did as having been done by them, or for you to knowingly aid someone in such a misrepresentation. It’s important to credit people for the work that they’ve done. Relatedly, if the work results in an academic publication, it may be an ethical requirement to list you as a co-author depending on the standards of your field.
There's nothing intrinsically unethical about the work you describe, or about charging people for it.

If academic credit is given, it is not per se unethical. However, it needs to be recorded that OP provided that information. Not sure that I agree with the payment issue, as the research would not have happened without the mandate, and that has a smell to it, even with the credit being given.

There are at least two sides to the question: whether the actions are unethical when applied to anyone (not just students), and whether there is an ethical difference when a student is involved.
First, considering the actions when applied to any person, in principle, there is nothing unethical about doing a literature search for someone, nor is there anything unethical about you charging the person to do intellectual work for them. In fact, whether you are paid or not, shouldn't make much of a difference (except for the very important point I make at the very end). Ethical problems would mainly come up when asking if that person credits you for your contribution or not.
If a researcher has someone do some research work for them and then published the work, it is usually considered a professional courtesy to at least acknowledge the other person's contribution, but this is not usually considered an ethical obligation. (Indeed, it would probably be unethical to credit you as a co-author for such little work; see Literature review and authorship).
Second, the fact that the person is a student only really matters if the student intends to submit the work for academic credit. If the student is expected to submit work that they did on their own, then the student would be obligated to report the extent of your assistance to their instructor. Again, whether or not the student paid you is irrelevant--what matters is that the instructor should understand that they received outside help for the work they are submitting.
From your side, it probably isn't strictly required for you to care what the student does with your help. However, if you have reasonable ground to suspect that the student is using your work to cheat on an assignment, then I think you should certainly ask the student to clarify this suspicion. If the student's explanation is acceptable to you, then act as you see fit. However, if you still suspect that the student is cheating, then you should act with the understanding that you are probably collaborating in their cheating.
Ultimately, you should take care of your conscience and act accordingly. And that's where the matter of payment really matters: if the fact that you are being paid makes you less sensitive to your conscience, then you certainly shouldn't receive any payment. Your conscience is worth far more than any monetary price.

Although your question is about a student, consider first the situation of professional researchers.  It is certainly not unethical for researchers to employ assistants to do some of the work for them; this is common in academia.  If this leads to published or submitted work, the employer should not attempt to pass-off the employee's work as their own, and this would usually mean giving some acknowledgement to the assistant in the paper (or giving co-authorship if their contribution is sufficiently substantial to warrant this).
Now consider your problem where the employer is a student rather than a professional researcher.  The only difference here is that the work is being submitted as assessment for courses rather than as an academic publication.  The same considerations apply: the employer should not attempt to pass-off the employee's work as their own, and should give appropriate acknowledgement in the submission.  If the course requires the work to have been done without assistance, then this will fall foul of that requirement.  If you have reason to believe that your employer will use this work in a way that is unethical (i.e., submitting as his/her own work for an assessment item that was supposed to be done without assistance) I recommend that you should decline to participate.
Finally, the fact that you are being paid is irrelevant.  Whether you are being paid or not, the ethical issue is about whether the student receiving your work is attempting to pass it off as their own.

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text:
Appropriate salutation for female German full professor
I'm buying a desk nameplate for a full professor (in USA) who is female and of German origin. I'd like to have this nameplate follow the conventional salutation someone would use in Germany for a female at the highest academic rank.
Please note it is not important if using desk nameplates in Germany is customary or not. But if you're in Germany and have seen these in academia, I'd be interested in knowing how they're formatted. This answer is helpful but does not directly address how I should print this on a nameplate.
Assume the individual is called Joan A. Smith, Ph.D.

Prof. J. A. Smith, Ph.D.
Professor Smith
Joan A. Smith, Ph.D. (with "professor" written underneath)
etc?

What would be the most appropriate (German) way of engraving this item?

You mean formal German salutation in English? Name tags on doors, floor plans etc are much longer than this. Why don’t you just ask what she prefers?

In Germany, it is customary to refer to him/her as "Doctor Professor" or perhaps more accurately, "Herr Doktor Professor" if male.  I'm not sure of the female equivalent.

The abbreviated form "Prof. Dr. Joan A. Smith" is very common. Also, it is never "Doctor Professor" as @HEITZ says - the professor always comes first. An advantage of the abbreviation is that you don't have to worry about writing "Professorin" and/or "Doktorin".

@Dirk Oops, thanks for the correction. Dyslexia, I guess.

The standard format in Germany is: [Prof. Dr. FirstName LastName]. In some formal situation, they mention the type of their PhD like: [Prof. Dr.-Ing. FirstName LastName] or [Prof. Dr. rer. nat. FirstName LastName]. I think this distinction does not make sense out of Germany.

The proper answer depends on a few details which you haven't specified. Is this a (novelty) gift, or are you asked to obtain one for actual use? Has she actually obtained her PhD (and possibly higher academic degrees and/or titles) in Germany or is she simply of German extraction? (For what it's worth, I have never seen a nameplate in a German office, and having one would certainly raise a few eyebrows -- and not in a good way.)

If this person obtained her doctorate outside of Germany (i.e. it's an actual PhD, not a Dr.-Ing. or Dr. rer. nat.), it is illegal by German law to write "Prof. Dr. X". It has to be "Prof. X, PhD" instead. Since you're in the US it wouldn't apply, but she might care...

@nengel I like the second form you show “Prof X, PhD” and it could be something to keep and use in yhe future for her.

The correct title depends on.. their title. They could have one or more "Dr somethings". So it could be Prof. Dr rer. nat. Jane Doe. Or Prof. Dr. Dr. mult. Jane Doe. If you don't know stick to Professor Jane Doe (maybe Prof. Dr. Jane Doe, but if she is a honorary professor she does not necessarily have a PhD). In your case I would honestly go forth and simply ask her. If that is out of question, ask her (former) institute or secretary.

@nengel: That law has been relaxed somewhat; the title "Dr." can now be used by holders of PhDs granted in the EU and a few other countries.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_(title)#Germany.

So, you would no longer say "Frau Prof. Dr." or "Herr Prof. Dr." ??

Unless this is a surprise, ask her what she prefers!

The closest to the picture you are showing is
"Professorin Dr. Johanna Schmidt"
where the "Dr." needs to be replaced by the correct specification, e.g. Dr.-Ing., Dr. rer nat, ...
If you are having less space, you can use "Prof." instead of "Professorin" (note that "Professorin" is the female form of "Professor")
If the real title is a PhD and not a "Dr.", you should write
"Professorin Johanna Schmidt, PhD"
In all cases, the first name might be abbreviated. In Germany it is relatively uncommon to use the second name - you should check how she uses it and follow the style she prefers.
I would not write "Professorin" underneath the name - it looks strange to me.

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text:
Is it okay to request to do a reading project with a professor at a later time if he had politely denied it before?
I was planning to do a reading project with a professor in my institute and had asked him in the last semester whether it would be possible for me to do it under his guidance.  However he had politely denied the request saying that he was a bit busy at that time and maybe we could try it at a later time. Since the semester had ended, I was wondering  whether it would be appropriate for me to approach him again with the same request especially as he had told me that he was busy at that time. However, I was wondering whether it would be considered as bad manners as I might be forcing him to reject this for a second time even though he had hinted to me before. Does someone have any experience with this kind of experience and if so could you please help about what is my best course of action?

Yes, it is fine to ask.
However, if you want to increase your chances that he will agree, make it a formal and specific proposal with stated goals. In other words, make it easy for him to say yes and to create criteria for your evaluation. Say what things you will deliver at the end.
That way, even if he is busy, he might just decide that you won't add enough to his work to cause issues elsewhere.

I had two experiences during undergrad where a professor told me they were too busy to supervise a project of mine. In one case I ended up doing a project with that professor later; in the other case I never did.
Since he explicitly said that maybe he could supervise you at a later date, I think it's perfectly appropriate for you to ask again. Just be prepared that he may still be busy.


text:
Next steps in approaching an unresponsive academic
I am applying for PhD programmes very soon and I have recently been trying to get in touch with my potential referees. At my previous institution there is a professor who knows me the most out of all academics I know; we had plenty of conversations regarding the field I want to pursue my PhD in and also I did very well in modules taught by him. I was planning to request a reference from him and I tried to get in touch with him three times (through e-mail), however, he has not replied to me (it has been about two months since my first e-mail). Should I assume that he overlooked my e-mails (he is very busy) and send him another message? Or rather, should I try to contact him through the Department? It might seem to be a trivial case, but I really do not want to annoy him too much as his reference would potentially be of the biggest importance in my applications. What would you suggest in this particular case?

Since you used to interact with him a lot: when you used to communicate with him, was he responsive to email in general? Or did he often lose track of email?

Try calling him, giving an answer will take about as long as hanging up the phone.

@ff524 Usually, it was through random encounters or during his office hours. In terms of his responsiveness to e-mails, I would say it was about 50/50.

I had a similar experience with a professor while working off an Incomplete.  He did a lot of outside consulting on top of his academic obligations and was one of those people who is simply hard to contact.
In the event that your professor is simply hard to contact I would track down a phone number and try a direct call.  It is possible that your emails got lost in the shuffle or the spam filter.
Alternatively their situation may have changed since you were there: they could be on sabbatical, sick or they may have left the institution.  Do you have any friends still there you could check with? You could also check the course listings to see if they are currently teaching.
Without knowing the professor I think it is unlikely they are trying to duck your request.  If they didn't want to recommend you, there are other ways to handle that such as with a weak recommendation or simply telling you.
I would try to exhaust the other contact options before officially trying to contact them through the department.
Does your new potential school have a portal for recommendation letters?  I know several schools that request the recommendation directly from individuals you specify.

This professor is also doing a lot of consulting and external work. Also, I had my friends to check whether he is still working there and it seems that it is the case. My potential schools have portals for recommendation letters, but I think it would be better to first know that he is actually happy to refer me, rather than to present him with a fait accompli. Would you suggest to give him a ring or maybe to use a more subtle way such as sending a letter, which is more difficult to overlook?

Something more subtle than a direct call during working hours is to call their office phone well after work hours and leave a message.  I wouldn't mention the emails in the message.  Just let them know you are applying to PhD programs and would like to talk to them about a recommendation letter.  Then give a callback number.  Depending on your location, you could drop in for a visit during office hours and casually mention your plans.  Then gauge their reaction;  see if they offer a letter or just nod.

I believe that calling him well after his working hours can be dangerous - sometimes he stays in the office very late. It would be quite awkward if he pick up my call about 10 p.m.

I don't like being called, as that forces me to respond at a time that is in all likelihood not convenient to me. If you want to call, call his secretary.

He can always decide not to pick up the phone if he doesn't want to answer.  I think calling is the best way to reach this person, unless you are still near campus and could stop by office hours.

If he has a secretary, call him or her, and ask what would be the best approach.
You could try calling him during his office hours.
If you want to leave a voicemail and are concerned he might be working in his office in the evening -- a safe bet would probably be early morning.
There are scores of questions on this site about professors not sending in a promised recommendation letter on time.  Since this guy is even flakier than that, I suggest you look for other professors to recommend you.  If this guy manages to send a letter in, you'll be pleasantly surprised.  But if he doesn't, your application won't be held up.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.


text:
Should getting no response in this timespan be understood as a no? What should I do in this situation?
I am starting my Ph.D. and am interested in a specific field of research which seems quite promising for the next years. Now, my masters supervisor does not work in this field, nor anyone in the department, and it seems in the country.
Nonetheless, he is interested and suggested me to find an expert in the field from another country to collaborate and said he would sign a recommendation letter1. In the better scenario this would be a formal co-supervision, but not a requirement.
So, I sent an email to such an expert (in fact it seems one of the researches who started the field) with my masters thesis attached as well as the recommendation letter. After a week unfortunately I didn't get any response.
I asked my masters supervisor and he suggested me to reply the email resending it, because he said that usually there is an answer. He also told me to add one line asking if someone else could be suggested.
I've sent the message last week and no answer as well up to now.
To be honest I'm confused. I mean, the thesis has been quite complimented by a very famous researcher in my country who integrated the examination board. The recommendation letter speaks quite well about my work. Finally my university seems to be respected internationally. With all this, I thought at least a no as answer I would get.
Perhaps the only point is that I have not worked in that field in my masters, but that was because no one in the country knew it.
Now, is this lack of response, in the timespan I told about, effectively a no, totally dismissing the possibility, and so should I already disconsider it? Or a no would be really be said explicitly? Should I wait more before looking for some other possibility?
Edit: In trying to make the question more concise and to the point (whether or not one could expect an answer in the timespan of more or less 10 days) I left out a detail. The email was focused on asking for a collaboration. Of course, formal co-supervision would be better, but it is not required, and we briefly mentioned it. So the email was entirely focused on collaboration. The scholarship pays for just a collaboration also, where the PhD student spends one year working on the group of another researcher.

1. I don't know how things are done in other places, but here it is possible to establish a collaboration with a researcher from anywhere, including other country, and have it all paid by the scholarship if you need to stay a certain time working there with him. This may or may not be a formal co-supervision, so that the researcher has the option to not sign if he cannot.

Is it still summer break in your location / the other supervisor's location?

In the UK at least, supervising students at a Uni other than your own is frowned upon internally. Some pretty much don't allow it. You say you have scholarship to pay for "time working there", but what about the time it takes him to review your work, answer your emails, and have skype or whatever meetings with you? You aren't paying fees at his Uni so, essentially, the Uni would be giving you his time for free, time that could be spent with one of their students.

I didn't mean that to sound harsh, rather to put into perspective why you maybe getting no answer. If you are asking him to do something that isn't his job and to do it for free, his Uni administration isn't going to agree to it.

@AzorAhai, I had not taken that into consideration. Indeed after looking up a bit it seems that at the possible co-supervisor location is indeed summer break right now (it is not here).

@user1620696 Then I would suggest not emailing again until a few weeks into the new quarter, to allow them to get settled.

Your time scale seems too short for me. Patience might be a virtue here. But sending the thesis and the request at the same time is probably a pretty heavy load to drop on a person.
Ask your advisor to follow up with a request and a recommendation. It might be more successful coming from them than from you.
But in general, making a request and offering to show related work in the initial request might be more successful than just sending it all at once. Some people get a lot of these requests and have learned to ignore them.

Hi @Buffy, thanks for the answer. So you think that perhaps some days from now, if I get no reply my advisor sending a request and a recommendation directly (he was copied in the messages I sent) would be ok? I just don't want to be discourteous, that's why I'm asking to be sure.

Like I said, if the next communication is from your advisor it would be more likely to meet with success. But there are no guarantees in such things. People have their own responsibilities, of course.

told me to add one line asking if someone else could be suggested

I would like to take a different perspective and reframe the issue as an issue about networking and also about investigating the networks present in a narrow field of endeavour.
If the field is so narrow and there is only one recognized expert in the field, ie. the person you emailed, then you have to appreciate how difficult it is for him to engage and represent such a narrow field. He would be working extensively and focused on growing the knowledge of his field rather than expanding his networks. So investigating his networks for other co-supervision would be worthwhile. What conferences has he presented in, what are the other sessions and authors in that area? Who are his collaborators? His co-authors on papers, what skill-sets or areas that make his work interesting?
There may also be institutional barriers or other structural barriers that would make co-supervision difficult that you may not have appreciated. Does his institution allow international co-supervision? Is this acknowledged in his institution? As ZeroTheHero said, most institutions require a lot of paperwork and approval before co-supervision is permitted. What are the rules around co-supervision for your institution? What are the administrative demands and expectations? Has international co-supervision been done before? What will the impact of timezone differences be? All these issues are important barriers to co-supervision that will take him a lot of time to figure out even before he emails you.
Lastly, have you thought of collaboration instead? This may be more reasonable as the administrative burden is far less and you are able to do all the work with your current supervisor. Have you also thought instead of potentially doing your postdoc with him instead? All these options are far less "heavy" as Buffy as said.

about your first point, that is the reason we asked him in the email about colleagues. About the second point there was a poor choice of words in my question because I've tried to make it concise, so probably I shall edit it. We proposed collaboration. It was just a single line that said "well if you could co-supervise that would much better, but that's not needed*. The scholarship pays for a PhD student to stay one year working in the group of another researcher just in a collaboration, without requirement of signing a co-supervision.

Thanks for clarifying. That scholarship configuration is not common, so that is a very important distinction. A free year of collaboration with your scholarship though a great opportunity might entail a lot of coordination and be quite administratively time-consuming, so clarification with the other institution may be worthwhile. Some universities will still expect fees etc even if it is just free sponsored labor.

"then you have to appreciate how difficult it is for him to engage and represent such a narrow field."
-- I don't appreciate people who has legitimate reasons to turn down a suggestion, as you've justly explained, but choose instead of articulating briefly these reasons, simply to ignore in a rude manner scholars who send them messages.

Thanks @Dilworth. I guess I am saying the prof may not be ignoring but working hard to get an answer and possible reason why he could be investigating viability before answering. I am trying to be optimistic. Sometimes being positive and emailing even you are being ghosted may still allow for possible collaboration in the future. If he goes nuclear and express the very reasonable hostility, he may burn bridges permanently and not be give the prof a way out later on. But my feeling is that academic ghosting is happening as you suggested.

Certainly, the OP should not become hostile. It is good to be optimistic, but I find the odds that your explanation holds very small. There is only a negligible chance that the professor "is working hard to get an answer". It is more probable that the professor has decided to ignore the OP, and haven't thought about it more than five seconds. The OP needs to send another gentle email, or ask his advisor to do that.

The ghosting rate is high at about 50%. Also worse for non-white names so it is important to escalate and have a plan B. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/opinion/sunday/professors-are-prejudiced-too.html

First, we cannot know the precise answer obviously. In theory, the professor may have his/her own reasons for not answering.
But using some common sense my answer is that it is highly probable that the answer to your question is "Yes! The professor is declining a cooperation".
Unfortunately, it is very common for academics nowadays to simply not answer emails. I find this behavior rude and unacceptable, unless the emails are spams, or the said academic simply receives thousands of emails each day in case he/she is a well known public figure. But in most cases, academics can and should answer reasonable informative questions, like yours, and they choose not to, simply because they can.
I call this unprofessional behavior "academic ghosting!".
The reason why, probably, the professor has chosen to ignore you is most probably this: he/she does not know you, and does not find your suggestion attractive enough for them, or risk free enough (that is, they don't know if your are a serious enough researcher, etc.). If you are talking about cooperation with you staying in your current university, then the professor does not view this as an attractive deal for him/her, due to many administrative and other reasons.

I would never answer an email from a student suggesting I co-supervise him with someone I do not know.  At the very least the email should be from the supervisor.
I would never co-supervise with someone unknowledgeable in my field.
My university does not allow co-supervision by people who are not at least adjunct to the core unit of the program.
I would never accept remote co-supervision in a unit where I do not know the supervisor and in which I do not have some sort of appointment at least at the adjunct level.

about the first point, it was my masters supervisor who told me to do it like that - send the message with copy to masters supervisor. Just saying that because I didn't know this was discourteous nor did I want to be discourteous. About the bureaucratic aspects of co-supervision, what we really asked for was a collaboration (I've edited the question to make this clear, it was my fault that the OP wasn't clear about it, so I apologize). A formal co-supervision is not required if there are bureaucratic issues.

I think you're not seeing the whole picture here.  You need to get your current supervisor to initiate any potential co-supervision.  As you have explained it, the odds of getting an answer are next to nil: why would an expert in a field take on remote supervision or co-supervision with an unknown professor of an unknown student with no background in this area?  Your current supervisor is the person that needs to make the case, not you.

"I would never answer an email from a student"
-- You have explained well why you can't supervise the student, and I agree with most of your reasons. However you failed to explain why you wouldn't answer the email stating these reasons briefly.

@Dilworth frankly: on what grounds should I respond?  I'm sorry to say that the process described by the OP is prima faciae suspicious, and honestly I don't know of anyone who would answer such emails (although of course I concede this does not mean some would not, just that those people I know would not.)

I am not justifying the lack of response @Dilworth, I am increasing the context and proposing possible complexities that would take time to decipher even if the professor is keen. If he is unaware of the rules around having a student for a year for free, he might send an email to the graduate school and they might take a couple of weeks to formulate a response? If he was confused about the level of supervision and the nature of the collaboration, he might be taking time to discuss with a colleague or contacts from that country. I suspect your answer of ghosting is more likely though...

The grounds are obvious to any serious academic, I suspect: we are here to engage in scholarship, and a person is interested in engaging with us on extending our scholarship. That is commendable. There is no reason then to behave in a rude and unprofessional manner. I, a professor, do respond to such emails. Mostly declining them politely.

@Dilworth It's hard enough for students to get answers to "cold call" emails from professors... I sense here the expectations of the OP are not correctly calibrated.

If the professor is swamped with hundreds of such emails then there can be no expectation to answer the emails. But you have to distinguish a research student from an undergrad.
However, we cannot deny the culture of ignoring emails by academics, based solely on deals which are deemed unattractive to them. I find this unacceptable.

@Dilworth I get around 75 emails a day: I simply cannot answer them all.  Even taking an average of 2minutes to properly read every email, that 2.5hrs a day!  And this doesn't include the time I would have to spend replying to each email... add another minute to this and we're  well over 3hrs... and I have not even started my emails.

That's fair enough. But I don't believe that you get concrete research directed emails, talking about collaborations with another scholar. What kind of emails do you get each day? Again, the OP has a specific scientific interest in the professor's work. The OP is not a salesmen trying to sell a product. Nor a predatory journal. Neither a generic spam email about getting into grad school...

PS. no disrespect, but you have time to engage in extensive stackExchange discussions but not to answer a scientific driven email? :)

@Dilworth No offence taken.  I've been travelling all day so I answered from an airport and I'm currently in transit to my final destination.  and yes otherwise I do check SE about 20 minutes a day.

I would suggest emailing with multiple people at once for practicality. People can take a lot of time to respond or simply do not respond. Couple reasons might be,

They might be on holiday (I have seen academics who do not even check their mails in vacation)
It might be ignored
It might get tagged for spam
The recieving end might be talking their time to consider

I had similar issues when I was trying to find speakers for certain events. I might be practical to add a time limit. Something along the lines of "if you could reply within a week it would be really helpful".

If I got a "reply within a week" from a student asking me for a favour like this, it would rub me the wrong way for sure. Even considering accepting a PhD student at another university as an advisee takes much longer than a week. The admin involved alone...

@GrotesqueSI I was refering to "reply" as a literal reply. Not as an answer. Something along the lines, "I will consider this by X date" would be a reply.

I have seen academics who do not even check their mails in vacation ... a bit of an odd phrasing here. People should not be expected to check email on vacation.

@AzorAhai I don't know anyone who completely disconnects from their email on vacation. So those that do would be pretty unusual around here. Certainly people may not want to think much about work or deal with non-emergency administrative issues or prospective students.

Agree with @GrotesqueSI, you cannot say this in an email. The professor should simply reply. Some professor choose not to. This is an unprofessional behavior and I would also think twice before engaging in cooperation with a professor who does not have the dignity to reply to simple emails like this.


text:
Should I respond to emails (resembling spams) asking for my papers?
I started to get emails like this:

From: Firstname Middlename Lastname <someotherfirstname0000@hotmail>~
Title of paper.
I need the article to study.
thank you!
Firstname Middlename Lastname

Title of paper identifying one of my papers.
Is this the beginning of academic spam or phishing? Do you get such stuff regularly?

The first reaction I had was to answer with an ironic version of how I'd like such an email to look and how I'd have answered it.
On a second thought I decided that the email was so rude that I won't  answer it.
After a few hours I got the very same email a second time. I noticed that the sender name is not the one of the names in the "signature". Also, the sender is rather unknown to the more relevant part of the internet (including pubmed).

I realize this is not really a question that can have a best answer (unless someone convinces me to answer that poor guy)... Nevertheless, I think it may be useful information for someone else who gets such emails and has a look wheter other people have experienced the same.

I would only respond if the address corresponds to a "known" academic institution, or if the email looks legitimate: in other words, when the email address is an "obvious" match for the sender. Otherwise, I'd treat it as spam and ignore it.

@aeismail: "I would only respond if the address corresponds to a "known" academic institution" - so much for the idea to ask authors for a copy when you don't have access to a paywalled paper, a primary reason of which can be that you are not affiliated to any academic institution.

@O.R.Mapper: aeismail does say "or if the email looks legitimate". When I receive a reasonably phrased request for a paper I do not ignore it. However, I do very much prefer if people put a bit of context into their email (who they are, what their field is, which group or company they belong to, possibly a rough description of the topic of their study). This a) helps me to place them in case we've met somewhere and b) I then often include other papers/references that I think may be a better match for what they are looking for.

I don't even think this is for harvesting papers. My guess: it is to validate email addresses so that actual spam campaigns can achieve a better return on investment.

The worst case of responding is a little more spam, so I would respond. I often find myself in a culture slash between what I consider rude and students consider acceptable email behavior. It wouldn't surprise me if a number of students were prepping for an exam and all wanted your paper.
As for the paper phishing bot, it seems like it would be more efficient to use student library access to download papers (automatically) than to collect them via email.

I agree that automated download seems easier. But that may depend on where you are. If a) your library put spatial/temporal hurdles on the access (e.g. the computers with better access being handed out in time shifts). b) there are lots of libraries who actually don't have that many journals. While I don't know, I can immagine that big publishers like Springer and Elsevier try to detect automatic download. I know they forbid it, but I don't know whether they are effective at detecting.

The beginning and the end of your account contradict each other, so I do not understand if you got this message many times, from several different addresses, or once or twice, from the same person.
In the first case, it definitely seems a spam-like behavior.
In the second, it could be a honest message from a grad student with poor English knowledge. Check if the names are compatible with this explanation; if so,
I would definitely answer. It could even earn you a citation. :)

Well, that was long ago, I got the same message 2 or 3 times. The possibility that it could have been an honest grad student actually made me ask here. But I decided that even a grad student with difficulties in English could use an institutional email address. And at the very least could use the same name in the email address and the email body. In the end I decided that it was spam.

My guess is it's someone setting up a bot to try and get research articles for free. Once your paper is published, the copyright is owned by the journal. Unless you paid for open access, you are breaking the copyright by sharing the article. In addition, you are probably also breaking the terms of the subscription to the journal your university has.
In other words, ignore the email!

Yes I know. If I get polite, sensible requests that show the sender is really talking about my stuff, I send preprint versions (which are usually formatted with figures inside the paper), which is OK with the journals, and which is also OK with everyone who actually needs the info.

If you're right, then at least the academic.SE community is warned now ;-)

Yeah, I'd agree with you on sending preprints to people who ask coherently and politely. This email seems bot-generated or at least someone fishing for a lot of papers.

Who still publishes in journals that don't allow you to personally e-mail the final version to interested individuals?

@DavidKetcheson: much of the chemistry afaik. BTW: arxiv doesn't even have a theoretical chemistry section, which I guess is the most physics-like discipline we have from the point of "behaviour".

Why the downvotes to this answer?

I didn't downvote it, but the answer is factually wrong about e-mailing articles in most cases.  It could be true in principle, but in practice almost no journal publishing agreements forbid this.  For example, even Elsevier says authors have "the right to make copies and distribute copies of the journal article (including via e-mail) to research colleagues, for personal use by such colleagues for scholarly purposes" (see http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/rights).  Although I guess you could debate whether this is really a "research colleague".

Thank you, @AnonymousMathematician.  Although the OP is talking about an anonymous entity, Scientifics is talking about (the possibility of) a bot and not a research colleague.  A bot could use the paper for profit and not "for scholarly purposes."

I downvoted. I believe the information about copyright is incorrect (even if it is a bot asking you). I also think that the likelihood of a paper collecting bot is small. I cannot imagine the situation in which a bot can profit from downloading a paper.

Thank you, @DanielE.Shub, for your comment.  I'd like to make a correction to my comment above: instead of "anonymous entity" I should have written "unknown entity."  I also note that "profit" is a poor word choice.

@AnonymousMathematician: "factually wrong in most cases" is probably factually wrong in that generality. And it is for my field. Anyways, as this answer discusses the possibility of a bot, it it obviously an "other case": I cannot imagine a bot working scholarly...

@DanielE.Shub: please explain your reasons for thinking the information about copyright is incorrect (with or without bot) - maybe in your answer?

@DanielE.Shub: well, usually not the bot but the one behind the bot wants to profit. I could easily imagine several schemes how to profit by such a bot. Directly: copying books is pretty common, and ≈ 5 papers are roughly the price of 1 book. Also indirect profit would be possible: remember the wave of law suits when floppy disks etc. were advertised in inch instead of cm (in Germany and I believe other EU countries, too)...

@cbeleites Many funding agencies require that all publications resulting from the funding must be open access (e.g., NIH and PubMed Central). The underlying prinicpal to PubMed Central is that the author holds the copyright of version submitted for review while the journal owns the copyright on the copy edited and typeset version). Further, every journal I have published in has provided me with an electronic reprint and many still provide paper reprints (who knows why).

@DanielE.Shub: I very much welcome these policies and their effect on e.g. Elsevier and Springer copyright transfer. But the policies I know do not require typeset versions [see also my first comments] and they agree with the latency period. The fact that the journal gives you a typeset version of your work does not automatically mean that you can hand out infinite numbers of copies. Remember, also the paper reprints were few (≈ enough to give 1 to each co-author and 2 - 3 to interested colleagues - with the option to buy more).


text:
Did a masters in order to make up for my BA marks. But I did worse. What now? A second MA?
The title says it all. One thing to mention though, is that I am not too bad - I have B+ marks. Another thing to mention is that a lot of my doing bad had to do with mental health and family in war.
I am not sure what to do now, I wanted to apply to top universities, but fear I am not competitive anymore, and explaining the circumstances also won't make my marks better, so I am still a less attractive candidate than others who have better grades and no such history.
What do you think about doing a second master in this situation? (I know this is not possible in the US, but would be possible for me in the UK)?

Have the circumstances that affected your grades previously changed significantly? If not, your grades in a second masters probably won't be any better.

circumstances have changed, yes.

Your explanation of being in the humanities with no 'industry' for you begs the question... why are you pursuing advanced degrees or maybe asked another way... what do you hope to do with your life once all degrees have been attained? If you can focus on that instead of focusing on attaining the grades to get into the prestigious university vs. a lesser known one; and how it will be perceived by the respective schools you may come up with the answer on your own.  A PhD at any respectable university is an accomplishment in and of itself, and one that you would/should be proud of. Inevitably, whether you get into a top tier university or a lower tier one, what you get out of it depends on what YOU put into it. Whether it is an 'industry' or a career or a profession or a job, that is what will await you when schooling is done.  Try to focus on what you want to be doing after school then pursue any school that can give you a credible education towards that end, and then move forward and don't look back! So in answer to your original question... don't waste another two or three years on an additional Masters degree, move forward, and take what is available to you.  Good luck!

The decision of what to do with your life is ultimately yours to make, but I can outline the opportunities in front of you.
You can go for another Master's. If you know some area of knowledge you've always wanted to learn but never had time, this can turn into a decent option. However, as ff524 noted, if your life and family circumstances remain the same, you're unlikely to get a better grade.
As I understand from your question, you've planned to go for a PhD in a top university. Option 2 is to go for a PhD to a lesser university, work hard on your research for a year (aim to have a paper published by the end of the year) and apply to the major university. You'll have research experience and a better understanding of what you want to research, which can compensate for your lower-than-perfect grades.
Actually, in the process, you might realize that a lesser university also suits you, be it a good relationship in a research group, a convenient location, or something I can't even think of.
It also goes without saying that you should try and apply to the top university this year as well. It can't hurt to try and get some admission experience.
Finally, if you are extremely concerned with your grades being less than a perfect A, some good news for you. Industry cares little of the grades you had in your Master's as long as you perform well in your job. So, finding a job can be an option, more viable if you need higher income, less viable if you aim to become a professor.

Starting a PhD with the intent to transfer to a better university may not be a good plan; the "better" PhD program is likely to be very wary of students attempting this.

I thought some research papers written in university A could be an advantage while applying to university B. The OP might want to explain that he applied to A originally, and went to B to get more experience. Would you (as an admission committee member) be wary of a student with these motivations?

Based on the answers to Is it bad to apply to one PhD program with the intent of leaving for another (more prestigious) one?, Is transferring to another university an option for an unhappy PhD student?, Hiring a PhD student who left another PhD position, I think yes, many admissions committee members would be wary of such a student.

"Industry cares little of the grades you had in your Master's as long as you perform well in your job."  that can't be overstated.

thanks. i would like to point out that i am in the humanities, so there is no 'industry' really for me. what about doing a second masters, instead of a phd at a lesser known university, and trying to apply then after the masters? will this look worse than starting a phd at a lesser known uni with the goal to transfer?


text:
When did it become customary to eschew gender pronouns in scientific essays?
Anyone who's written a scientific essay knows that the use of he/she/him/her, etc are frowned-upon (except where necessary)
But where does this come from? When did it achieve (near) consensus? When were the guidelines first written by a major academic body?

Uh? Are there guidelines written by a major academic body?

[Citation Needed]. Indeed, I've encountered more insistence in keeping gendered pronouns (especially he/him/his) around in academia (and on this site) than in the rest of my life.

Yes, guidelines like this exist. For example, American Medical Association Manual of Style 10th edition, page 413: "Avoid sex-specific pronouns in cases in which sex specificity is irrelevant. Do not use common-gender "pronouns" (e.g. s/he, shem, shim). Reword the sentence ot use a singular of ploral pronoun that is not sex-specific"

Mathematics writing has long had this habit ("We will show...", "The author has previously...", etc.).  Usually it's explained as leaving your ego at the door and paying your respects to the work that came before you, as well as actively engaging the reader as an actor rather than a spectator.  "We will show..." type phrasing uses "we" (allegedly) because it includes the reader(s) implicitly, and is used even in single author papers. As far as I know it's as old as institutionalized math.

Relevant Q&A; may be a duplicate.

I would be surprised if this could be pinned down to one event or guideline. It's a tendency that got stronger as a result of growing 'gender awareness'.

I suspect this will depend on what the pronoun is referring to (a researcher, the reader, research participants, some other person,animals or inanimate objects). Notice that the guidelines you quote are likely to be in the context of research participants, and apply where gender is not being considered as a research variable (ie a paper comparing illness by gender would still use gender pronouns).

@Penguin_Knight: So, one could look at past editiions of that style manual and see which edition added this guideline?

@NateEldredge, perhaps. I'd start with around 1980. I did a word search for "gender neutral pronoun" in Google Ngram and it seems this word got picked up very abruptly around late 70s.

@zibadawatimmy I don't get your examples. Those are all ones referring to the person writing (possible among others). I don't see any way it would make sense to have a gendered pronoun in those cases.

@TobiasKildetoft I was a little off in where I was going with that, but it applies to situations where gendered pronouns would be more natural in casual speech, all the same.  When referring back to, say, "Peter P. Eater [2]", you rarely see the phrasing "He also proves...", but instead "Furthermore, [2] also..." The style eschews pronouns for people almost entirely unless they're third person, preferring to talk about papers and results over people. There are a few exceptions, as occasionally a less cumbersome grammar prevails.

People that worry about policing other people's language need to find better uses for their time...

While I don't know that there is one answer as to how this phenomenon came about (and I agree with you that it has gained traction in recent years), it has certainly been habit in some fields for a long time. Anthropology is an example of this, although I cannot find an American Anthropological Association style guide old enough that contains reference this (nowadays, AAA defaults to Chicago). My anthropology professors generally encouraged us to maintain gender neutrality, and the use of 'they' was considered an acceptable way to do so.
My graduate studies are in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) and, as you might assume, gender neutrality is generally encouraged. At the risk of stating the obvious, the use of 'him' or 'mankind' in generalized reference to people is considered inappropriately sexist. There are some circumstances where I have seen exceptions made to this-- especially in literature about sexual violence. Older monographs about sexual violence commonly refer to abusers and perpetrators by 'he' pronouns and victim/survivors by 'she' pronouns (see Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft for an example). However, I have noticed that this is less and less true for books published since 2000-- probably the result of greater acknowledgement of male rape victim/survivors, as well as the occurrence of sexual violence among queer couples.
I also know that some WGSS writers explicitly refer to neutral third person references with 'she/her' pronouns, specifically in defiance of the academic tradition of using 'he/him' for neutral third person reference (e.g. "A doctor might tell his patients..." or "A police office is expected to holster his gun..."). A similar logic is used in defense of new words like 'herstory' instead of 'history,' especially when the material focus on/deals primarily with women. Indeed, I have seen pushback on the use of 'she/her' in this way on the premise that it, too, is sexist. The debate around this is very complicated and probably not going away any time soon.
I have seen folks (including on english.stackexchange) attribute the invention and/or rise in 'gender neutral' pronouns-- and even the invention of 'they'-- to the feminist movement, but even a brief foray into the history of the English language upends that argument (see my second reference). There may be evidence that gender neutral language is coming into greater usage and popularity in the 21st century thanks to feminists, but thus far I have only encountered the anecdotal.
Outside of WGSS, I have seen writers switch between 'he' and 'she' for generic third person in a single piece of writing. For example, Bruce Perry does this in his book, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, although some people may consider this to be a less formal piece of writing.
None of the major style guides for humanities and social sciences (APA, Chicago, MLA) explicitly endorse 'they' as an acceptable third person singular pronoun (read more here). In fact, Chicago actively discourages it. While APA encourages 'gender neutrality,' apparently it considers 'they' to be 'too informal' for academic writing.
In reference to your last question about guidelines, you may want to look through this page, which gives examples of gender neutral pronoun suggestions in chronological order, dating back to 1792! As others have argued (again, see my first reference), the use of 'they' is not some new-fangled trend, but actually has a long and complicated history. (An oft-cited, 400+ year-old example comes from Shakespeare.) So-called 'grammar nazis' who refuse the use of 'they' on the grounds that it is 'ungrammatical' may be surprised to find that the debate around the gender neutral third person in English is over a two hundred years old-- older, depending on who you ask. This doesn't stop some of them from being outright offended at the lack of subject-verb agree (or at least this is the most common objection I come across). Others argue that it strains their linguistic faculties to use 'they' as a gender-neutral third person singular (see linguist Sally McConnell-Ginet's chapter "'What's in a Name?' Social Labeling and Gender Practices" in The Handbook of Language and Gender [2003] for more on the 'awkwardness' of 'they' as third-person pronoun).
On a more personal level, I have a lot of feelings about the issue of 'they,' because I go by they/their pronouns. I have encountered a great deal of hostility in my day-to-day as a result of this. People have made all kinds of arguments to me about why it is wrong or why they can't cope with my pronouns. On a sociological level, it would certainly make for an interesting study.

Here are the ten reputation. Thanks for a well-researched answer; looking forward to the reference.

The point on 'history' and 'herstory' missed me by a mile.

@the_fox As it happens, there is a Wikipedia page about 'herstory'-- including criticism of the concept. To see the concept in action, [try this] (http://www.thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/).