Faculty Workload Responsibilities Policy

All aspects of a faculty member’s professional responsibility, including teaching, advising, scholarship, and service, shall be termed, for want of a more succinct phrase, faculty workload.

It is the responsibility of the department chairs and center directors to ensure as much as possible, an equitable distribution of workload among their faculty. The faculty deans and Vice President for Academic Affairs are responsible for reviewing the distribution on a faculty-wide and University-wide basis.

It is the expectation of the University that all faculty members will participate in scholarship and service activities in addition to their teaching and advising assignments. In some cases, it may be appropriate for a department chair or director to increase the teaching assignment of a faculty member who is not involved in scholarship or artistry, In determining teaching load it is appropriate for department chairs to take into consideration that the “normal” teaching load generates the FTE equivalent of 12-credit hour of instruction in “average sized” classes and to work out a reasonable equivalency for those faculty teaching studio and laboratory courses in which the contact hours may significantly exceed the credit hours generated. The deans also should review those instances in which faculty are given less than 12-hour teaching loads by virtue of having large enrollment classes at the introductory level. All other factors being equal, it may be more appropriate for instructional purposes to assign those faculty a greater course load and split those sections into smaller enrollment units. It also may be desirable to offer fewer courses at the advanced level, or offer those courses less frequently, in order to support smaller class sizes and more sections at the introductory level.

It is up to the discretion of the department chairs and directors, subject to review and approval by the dean of the faculty, to vary the assignments of faculty members under their jurisdiction according to the total workload of individual faculty members. To reduce the teaching load of faculty members within their departments in those instances where there is extraordinary commitment to research or creative activity and/or extraordinary commitment to University or community service or to increase the teaching assignment when other professional activities are below expectations is within the chair’s authority. We would not anticipate, however, that teaching load reductions, in view of total workload, would be more than two courses (six hours) on a short-term basis except in those cases where a portion of a faculty member’s salary might be written off against external funding. At any rate, instances of two course reductions should be rare and subject to approval of the dean. In summary then, the teaching load policy at the University is stipulated as 12-credit hours (or its equivalent in those departments in which the normal teaching load has been nine hours).

It is the department chair’s obligation to review faculty assignments with the appropriate dean prior to the establishment of the teaching schedules. Of course, first priority of the institution is the instructional needs of the students and no teaching load reductions should be made unless it is clear that the instructional needs of the students can be met either by increasing assignments of other members of the faculty or suitable modifications in the course offerings.

Within the instructional resources available to us by appropriate management at the departmental and center level, we can meet the needs of our students in our classrooms and at the same time encourage scholarly and service activities on the part of the faculty. This requires creative supervision of our most important resource, the faculty.