Guidelines on Teaching Assignments

These guidelines have been developed at this time in light of the known budget context and in the face of sober realities about the impact of reductions to general fund support for temporary faculty and graduate assistants. Beginning as soon as Fall 2003, we will have significantly fewer instructors (TS faculty, non-TS faculty, and TAs) than in recent years, but no fewer students needing to make progress toward graduation, and therefore no fewer class sections in need of staffing.

The guidelines make the assumption that all faculty who have full-time appointments at the university should expect to have work assignments that reflect full-time effort. Further, the guidelines have been crafted under the assumption that all faculty who have been reappointed and/or tenured are fully capable of producing work of excellent quality across the mission (teaching, research/creative activity, and service), and that a two-course per semester teaching assignment is intended to enable the highest levels of research and creative activity.

Teaching assignment expectations

Highly research-active tenured faculty, and TS-faculty prior to the tenure review (all of whom are assumed to be highly research active in order to achieve tenure), should expect a teaching assignment of 2 course sections (of 3 or 4 credit hours each) per semester (or, in applied music, an assignment of up to 18 contact hours). Faculty who are less productive in their research/creative endeavors should expect to be assigned to teach at least 17 credit hours per year, in courses with regularly scheduled meeting times and places (and in applied music, an equal proportional adjustment).

It will continue to be the responsibility of department chairs to make teaching assignments, taking into account departmental and college needs and respecting individual faculty accomplishments, and to be able to justify all assignments if asked to do so. It is further assumed that any faculty member who demonstrates a meritorious level of accomplishment in an appropriately determined work assignment can achieve a meritorious annual evaluation and a commensurate salary increment. In other words, it is assumed that annual evaluation guidelines in each department of the College take into consideration the opportunity for faculty to excel in a variety of different work assignment patterns.

Interpretive notes

1. The use of these guidelines should result in an overall increase in the number of sections per FTE faculty in Arts & Letters, thus responding positively to the BOT goal of protecting class size and meeting student demand.

2. It is assumed that all departments share the responsibility for teaching in general education (e.g. IAH, first-year writing, first-year seminars), as well as in their own major(s). In general, faculty are expected to meet their teaching obligations through offering courses/sections in a variety of venues, levels, enrollment limits, and formats. Especially in lower enrollment majors, but also throughout the college, use of the current guidelines is expected to increase faculty participation in general education and departmental large enrollment service courses.

3. It will be a starting assumption that faculty who have not achieved a level of meritorious accomplishment in research/creative activities on a 2 courses per semester assignment in the past three years will move to17 credit hours per year, beginning with AY 03-04. One significant measure of whether faculty on teaching assignments reflecting high research expectations (i.e. 2-2) have indeed achieved meritorious research productivity will be peer evaluations by departmental colleagues. It is assumed that research expectations in our departments reflect productivity norms at peer institutions (i.e. other public, research, AAU universities). The recognition of high research productivity through peer evaluation is typically reflected in recommended salary adjustments above the control figure, but may also be established through additional specific criteria for measuring and documenting research activities.

4. Faculty who are assigned 17 credit hours of teaching (or any assignment higher than 2-2) would need to demonstrate research productivity, or develop projects with demonstrable benchmarks that would be monitored by the department chair, in order to gain a future reduction in teaching assignment.

(revised 4/10/03)