coe-staff: Faculty workload policy development update

[Randy Kamphaus]

14 April 2017


Dear Faculty Colleagues,


I am writing to let you know that I have offered our academic leaders, Associate Deans Brigid Flannery and Leslie Leve, and Department Heads, more time to develop our non-tenure-track and tenure-related faculty workload policies.  I will offer a couple of reasons why I think that additional preparation time will be valuable to us.


Rationale

First, our University colleagues are still working out the details of our new approach to budgeting and tracking our performance accurately.  We are making efforts to create budgeting and planning systems that are better informed in an ongoing way by data.  This work is complex, and I can understand why we are not yet finished.  Every succeeding week provides more clarity about our direction that, in turn, will allow us to develop policies that will not be subjected to revisions in the near term.


Second, our non-tenure-track faculty workload policy requires more revision and updating than any of us anticipated.  The workload calculator was not deemed to have added significant value to the workload assignment process during its pilot year of application, which necessitates more clarity in the current policy.  The need for clarity and specificity is great as it allows our faculty and department heads to ensure greater equity in teaching assignments in particular.


Status of Policies

TTF Workload Policy: The tenure-related faculty policy was returned to the COE for revisions from Academic Affairs in Fall 2016. A revision was developed by a workload committee and submitted for faculty comment and vote.  The vote was 15 in favor and 18 opposed.  Because I received significant qualitative feedback along with your votes, I have decided to revisit that policy with your feedback in mind.


NTTF Workload Policy: The career-track faculty workload policy has been through two rounds with the NTTF workload policy committee. It was returned to COE in the fall 2016 by the Office of Academic Affairs for revisions because of a lack of clarity.  In addition, the associated calculator that we piloted with that policy proved unsuccessful.  Three members of the original NTTF committee have since convened again at my request and proposed a new policy using the TTF policy as a basis. That new draft has been submitted to me for review in advance of a faculty vote.


Next Steps

Here is my intended course of action. (For reference purposes please see the current policies at our policy library website; https://coedocs.uoregon.edu/display/governance/COE+Governance+and+Policies )


For TTF policy

1.     I am making changes to the tenure-related faculty workload policy based on: (a) your comments and feedback, (b) our precedent setting 2009 policy currently in force (Appended below), and (c) the likelihood that student course credit hours will be carefully tracked as an important gauge of faculty teaching productivity going forward.

2.     I will then forward this draft (TTF policy) to the Provost, Academic Affairs, and Office of Budget Planning for their input and, hopefully, assent to move forward.

3.     With this assent in hand I will ask our Deans and Department Heads to review the revised teaching workload policy.

4.     Next, I will ask Leslie Leve to seek input from the TTF workload committee regarding these changes.

5.     I will then finalize the policy and submit it to our Office of Academic Affairs for approval, and provide faculty with a summary of the changes.


For NTTF Policy

1.     I will ask Brigid Flannery to seek input from the NTTF workload committee on my revisions to the NTTF policy draft (See approved policy below).  In addition, I will have a specific request for this committee to add a clear statement about faculty workload - expressed in amount of course credits taught per term - that is informed by other NTTF workload policies around campus and from peer institutions.)

2. The resulting version of the NTTF policy will be sent to the faculty for a vote and comment.

3.  I will finalize the policy, inform faculty of any changes made, and submit it to our Office of Academic Affairs for approval.


I recognize that many of you have put great time and energy into prior versions of these policies, and for that I am most grateful. I appreciate your commitment, collaboration, and insights during this important policy development process and believe that the processes outlined above will ultimately result in policies that are aligned with those of our University colleagues and other leading research universities, and consider the faculty input received to date.

Regards,


Randy

Annual Work Load Policy for Tenure-Line Faculty

governance policy B3

Revised and Approved by Department Heads Council, 2-10-09, replaces 02-08-01 revision, policy originated by Martin Kaufman, Dean, 3-18-96

Standards for COE Tenure-Line Faculty Member Annual Activity

·       Teaching Expectations (.50 FTE)
 4-5 courses (15-16 credits; not to include special or independent studies courses, or dissertation or thesis supervision)

·       Advise and mentor students


·       Serve on thesis and dissertation committees

[X]

Rationale: OUS policy defines a nine-course teaching workload at non-research institutions. Our standard reflects the higher expectations at the University of Oregon for research and scholarly productivity. The teaching workload is negotiable and may be reduced by external funding (see Policy for Use of Release Dollars for Tenure-Line Faculty), administrative responsibilities, or substantial service contributions (e.g., serving as editor of a major journal ). However, all full- time, tenure-line faculty must teach a minimum of one, 3-credit, course each academic year.


Research Expectations (.25 - .40 FTE)
· Publish two, peer-reviewed journal articles per year
· Publish or disseminate other scholarly work each year (e.g., book, book chapters, conference paper presentations, non-refereed journal articles, technical reports)


Service Expectations (.10 - .25 FTE)

Full Professor

· Leadership on university, college, and departmental committees
· Actively contribute to administration/management of a program, major or department
· Actively participate and provide leadership in curricular or program development or revision.

Associate Professor

· Actively participate in several committees or work groups at the program, department, college or university level

· Provide leadership on one or more committees (e.g., chair)
· Actively participate in curricular or program development or revision

Assistant Professor

· Year 1-3, actively participate on at least two committees at the program, department, or college levels

· Year 4-6, actively participate on committees at all levels in the college (i.e., program, department, and college committees)

· Actively participate in curricular or program development or revision

All ranks

· Serve on external bodies such as professional organizations, provide service to local, state, or national agencies, and serve on editorial boards, or grant review panels. The level and scope of service activities are expected to grow with increasing faculty experience and rank.
Rationale: The service workload ranges from .10 to .25 FTE and is part of the university’s and the COE’s expectations for promotion and tenure. All faculty are expected to engage in stewardship of the COE, UO, and their profession; however, senior faculty members are expected to carry a significantly higher service workload in order to permit junior faculty members to focus more on teaching and research activities.

This electronic document supersedes all previous versions and is subject to change.


Workload / Assignment of Professional Responsibilities for Instructional and Career NTTF

Policy Document

(i) Instruction

The primary role of instructional CNTTF and NTTF is to deliver instructional services to students within a department and/or across the college. “Instructional Services,” or instruction, are those acts or practices that, (a) impart knowledge, skill, or information related to an academic content area; and (b) support the ongoing communication that is required to have an effective program of study for students. The definition is inclusive of: (a) teaching, (b) student supervision, and (c) advising and mentoring.

Teaching. Teaching is the primary function of instruction. Teaching includes the organization and delivery of a specific course. Because the COE offers variable credit hours for different courses and because courses often contain different numbers of students, it is not possible to assign a fixed FTE to all courses. However, all courses require a significant time commitment. The FTE calculator, discussed in detail in Section 5 (below), should be used to assist in determining the implied workload for courses.


Student Supervision. The COE has a large number of faculty who spend all or part of their instructional workload in supervision of student field-work such as service learning, field experience, practicum, teaching, internship, and independent study. Much of this field-work is designed to meet various standards of practice for the program. Thus, what constitutes supervision and the intensity of that supervision will vary across programs and field-work activities. As with teaching, it is not possible to assign a fixed FTE to supervision activities. The FTE calculator should be used to determine supervision workloads based upon the specific type of supervision provided and the types of student activities being supervised.


Advising and Mentoring. CNTTF and NTTF are expected to advise and mentor students who take their courses, which includes office hours that are provided during the terms in which courses are taught. Any advising or mentoring expectations related to credit-bearing classes are included when determining instructional FTE.


However, faculty are occasionally assigned a number of undergraduate or graduate advisees as part of their role as faculty in a particular program. The amount of time it takes per student and the amount of students assigned to a faculty member should be recognized as instructional FTE; however, given the infrequent and ad-hoc nature of these arrangements, they are not included as part of the FTE calculator and should be negotiated separately.


(ii) Scholarship

Scholarship includes the discovery and/or dissemination of new knowledge, integrating or developing new perspectives on knowledge, and the application of knowledge to consequential problems. Products or outcomes of scholarship include publications in refereed and/or non-refereed journals, books and/or book chapters, the development of grant applications, and presentations at professional meetings. The presumed impact of scholarship is measured by journal impact factor, university press versus trade press, and the peer reviewed nature of professional presentations. Although all scholarship is of value, greater impact is presumed to be derived from higher journal impact factor and other commonly accepted metrics.

For some CNTTF and NTTF, workload assignments may include professional responsibilities related to scholarship. Because workloads vary for each faculty member in the COE, it is recognized that there should be no “standard” assignment in regard to scholarship, but such assignments should be clearly specified in the position description. To assist in placing an FTE value on various types of scholarship activities, the FTE calculator provides estimates for amounts of time associated with a limited number of scholarship tasks. In cases where the FTE calculator does not provide a built-in estimate, it can still be used to guide conversations between faculty and unit administrators/supervisors.


(iii) Service

Institutional service is defined as the contributions a faculty member makes toward university, college, departmental, or program governance and maintenance. Service may also encompass direct support to student activities and/or support to the community through the delivery of essential services that support the COE or university mission. All departments, units, and programs in the COE have an expectation of service through participation in unit meetings, licensure/master’s meetings, and college or university meetings. As a result, a .10 assignment of institutional service is to be considered typical in full-time (1.0 FTE) position descriptions in the COE. For faculty who are retained at less than 1.0 FTE, it is highly recommended that a service component be included in the contractual definition of their position, but no numerical guidelines are provided by this policy. Additional service may be requested and assigned by unit administrators and supervisors. In such cases, FTE may be assigned as commensurate with role expectations. Service with the United Academics -UO would also count as service to the Libraries and University, if that service is (a) provided in a defined or formal capacity (e.g., as steward, as an elected member of the union council), (b) related to the UO’s business or concerns, and/or (c) not already compensated with release time as described in the CBA. Given the variety in service activities, both in terms of the specific activities undertaken and the time required for these activities, the FTE calculator provides a basic framework to guide conversations between faculty and unit administrators/supervisors but should not be used as the authoritative source for determining FTE associated with service.


(iv) Administrative Activity

In some cases, CNTTF and NTTF will be asked to serve in administrative roles within the university, college, department, or program. Such roles include, but are not limited to, Associate or Assistant Dean, Department Head, Program Director, Program Coordinator, Clinical Director, and other administrative roles within departments, the COE, or the University. Workload and professional responsibilities for these roles are determined by the program administrator and must be reflected in the position description. Given the variety of administration activities, both in terms of the specific activities undertaken and the time required for these activities, the FTE calculator only provides a basic framework to guide conversations between faculty and unit administrators/supervisors but should not be used as the authoritative source for determining FTE associated with administration.

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