Academic
Faculty responsibilities include teaching, advising, committee work and participation in faculty and Academic Area meetings and activities. Workload guidelines are theoretical at best, and what a faculty member does resists exact quantification. The time required for preparation, for the reading of papers, for advising and for committee work will vary from person to person and from situation to situation. The general expectation, however, is that each full-time faculty person will teach 22 to 24 semester hours each year and will also carry a reasonable load of advising, committee work and other activities on behalf of the College.
Faculty meetings and retreats, Academic Area activities, service on committees and special programs such as commencement should be considered an integral part of one's workload. Attendance and participation are expected.
Both the emphasis on advising and the recognition of individual attention as part of what a faculty member does in connection with class work, imply that a faculty member should be available to students at regular and stated times. Office hours sufficient to accommodate student contacts (a minimum of five hours per week) should be posted and observed. Availability is particularly important during add-drop days and during times when registration is taking place.
Whereas faculty load normally is calculated based on one credit of load per credit hour of classes taught, the following criteria apply to special cases:
The standard load is 12 hours per semester (four 3-hour courses or three 4-hour courses). A range of 22-24 hours is defined as a normal load. Area Coordinators are expected to assign full-time faculty to a load in this range. If it is necessary for a faculty member to teach in excess of 24 hours, s/he will receive overload compensation.
The following structured learning experiences are credited toward load on the, basis of 2 to 1, i.e., two contact hours per week are counted as one hour toward load: laboratories in the natural sciences; social sciences; agriculture; computer science and English; studio art; applied theatre; PE activity courses; research participation and music group rehearsals.
Graduate courses are counted as 4.5 hours of load per three-credit course. Further expectations of graduate faculty can be found in Appendix 1.16.
For those supervising student teachers, load is calculated at the rate mandated by the State Department of Education.
Faculty teaching in education classes with a field experience receive full load credit for class time and an additional credit for supervising the field experience component. In order for credit to be awarded a field component must have a minimum of 20 hours of experience. Courses taught in a non-traditional format will be evaluated separately. For those supervising internships (outside of the Education programs), load is calculated at the rate of one hour of load per 20 hours of internship credit. The following criteria apply to team teaching:
- If the course is "modular", i.e. two or more faculty members teach units of a course on their own, the load for the course is divided according to their respective time spent in teaching. The total load cannot exceed the hours in the course.
- If the course is jointly planned and both faculty members are fully involved in all or nearly all of the sessions of the course, each receives ¾ of the total credit toward their load, i.e., with a four-hour course, each would receive three hours of credit toward load.
All adjustments in faculty workloads, whether teaching fewer or more hours or shifting other assignments, should be made in consultation with and with the approval of the Academic Dean/Dean of the Faculty. When pre-registration indicates insufficient enrollment, reasonable efforts will be made to reassign the faculty member to a course s/he has already taught or to give the faculty member sufficient time to prepare a new course.
Research and scholarly activities are encouraged during appropriate parts of a faculty member's career. Early in a career the major emphasis will be on developing the skills connected with teaching, while as an individual's career develops the amount of scholarly activities should increase in proportion with an individual's accumulating scholarly style and knowledge. A more complete explanation of the criteria for promotion and for tenure can be found in Sections 2.5, 2.6 and 2.7.
Outside Employment/Consulting
Faculty members hired on a full-time basis have a duty to devote their working time, energy and skills to the education of their students and to the improvement of the College as a whole. Performance of outside committee assignments, academic research, community service and teaching responsibilities may at times require the faculty member to leave the campus for temporary periods, but such assignments should not interfere with the professional responsibilities of the faculty member to the College. In keeping with this expectation, acceptance of outside employment or consultation during contract time requires the consent of the Academic Dean/Dean of the Faculty, following full disclosure by the faculty member of the nature and extent of his/her outside activities. Failure to comply with this policy, under conditions where substantial conflict with professional responsibility to the College exists, may result in dismissal pursuant to Section 2.8.5.