The requirements for Professer status are pretty much the same here in the states...
Wikipedia:
"A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. [...] In most Commonwealth nations, as well as northern Europe, professor is reserved only for the highest academic rank at a university. In the United States and Canada, the title of professor is granted to a larger percentage, about a quarter, of scholars with doctorate degrees (typically Ph.Ds) or equivalent qualifications who teach in four-year colleges and universities, and is used in the titles assistant professor and associate professor, which are not considered professor-level positions in many other countries."
Are you saying this is wrong? Are you sure about this? My cousin is a "Professor" at a college in Colorado but over here in the UK he would just be a "lecturer". In the UK, in a university department, typically there will be only one professor, the academic head, formally addressed as e.g. "Professor Smith", e.g. the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University has been Stephen Hawking since 1980, the post was previously held by (among others) Isaac Newton, Joseph Larmor, Charles Babbage, George Stokes and Paul Dirac.
