Adjusting Faculty Workload

The University Senate initiated a discussion at the end of last year about the teaching faculty’s workload.  The discussion centers on the issue of changing all three-credit undergraduate and graduate course to four credits, which would result in faculty teaching three classes instead of four.  In fact, my understanding of the issue is that it was raised in order to address faculty workload concerns, rather than to address academic or programmatic concerns. 

I believe that many faculty would like more time to devote to research, and they perceive this as a means to that end.  If the root of this issue really were academic, then the Senate should have immediately referred the issue back to individual departments.  They did, however, refer the issue to CUCAS and the Graduate Council.  I do not know whether the Graduate Council has considered the issue yet, but in the discussion at CUCAS, the following implementation issues were raised:

· The number of courses undergraduates would need to take would go from about 40 to about 30.

· Courses would have to be revised for depth and or breadth of content to merit the credit change.

· Courses would no longer transfer easily in or out of WCSU.

· Faculty contact hours with students would have to increase from 37.5 to 50.

· Evening courses would have to meet for 3.2 hours per week. 

· The committee astutely noted that by contract, curriculum is a responsibility of the academic departments.

CUCAS decided to request that the Senate refer the matter to individual academic departments, which they have done.
 

More Problems

As departments and others consider the wisdom of making such a change, I would like to add several points to the partial but growing list of concerns that such an initiative engenders:

· The cost of paying part-time faculty would increase by one-third. (Not a problem for faculty perhaps, but who is going to pay for it?)

· The cost of paying full-time faculty for summer and intersession classes would increase by one third.  Would the minimum enrollment increase accordingly?

· Summer and intersession classes would be nearly impossible to schedule within current timeframes.

· With classes meeting longer or more often, what will be the impact on room scheduling?

· Not only will all transfers become problematic, but also our specific articulation agreements with CSU and other schools will be put in jeopardy.

· Not all courses are three credit classes now.  What will happen to our current one, two, and four-credit classes?  How will they fit into a revised curriculum?

· If a course merits changing to four credits now, it can be changed.

· If there is not uniformity of action across departments, then the program becomes unworkable, at least at the undergraduate level. 

· What will the impact be on students currently in the system who will need to finish their programs in the middle of this?  Or what will be the effect on part time students halfway thorough their ten year journey to get their degree who will be stranded in the midst of this?

· If faculty are looking to reduce their workload, they are actually giving themselves a lot more work by calling for the revision of nearly every class and every major and minor on campus.

· And, it still wouldn’t give anyone time for research.

As you can see, all the problems that CUCAS and I foresee have to do with costs and the practicality of implementing such a plan.  These are important and necessary concerns.  But, I have yet to see one strong academic reason for making such a change.
 

What is the Real Solution?

If the faculty and administration really want to address the faculty workload issue, they should support the AAUP contract proposal to reduce the teaching workload and increase the load credit for research. 

When the negotiation team met to plan and write our new contract proposals about three years ago, we heard from faculty across the four campuses that they wanted more time to do research.  Our initial proposal called for phasing in a nine-credit workload over a four-year period for teaching faculty.  (We had a similar proposal for counselors and librarians.)  We also proposed a concomitant reduction in the small pool of contractually mandated reassigned time for research (Article 10.6.4) over the same period.  By the end of the contract period, we envisioned all faculty with a nine-credit workload.  The rationale was that once faculty were regularly receiving a teaching reduction, they would have more time available to do their research and would no longer need to apply for the hours set aside specifically as reassigned time for research in Article 10.6.4.  Under this proposal, every faculty member would be able to have time to research; whereas previously, only about twelve people a semester got time to do research.

At the negotiation table, the BOT countered with a proposal to increase the amount of reassigned time for research available by about 60% in the first year.  For WCSU that would probably have meant going from 36 available hours to about 56 per semester.  Each year the number was to increase.  That would mean that in the first year about nine percent of the faculty would have had a workload adjustment, rather than our proposal for 100 percent.  We counter-proposed more reassigned time with strong language on equitable distribution of the reassigned time.  This second model became the basis for all subsequent talks about ways to reduce faculty workload.  At the end of negotiations, it was clear that AAUP and the BOT were not close to an agreement, and we deferred the issue to our contract negotiation reopener in a year and a half.
 

A Modest Proposal

So, which of these proposals will get the faculty what they want?  All the work and headache involved in changing to four credit classes with all of the extra teaching involved?  Or, our counterproposal of working to reduce our teaching load by substantially increasing reassigned time for research? 

I suggest that if people are serious about adjusting the faculty workload they work as long and as hard on lobbying for the AAUP contract proposal as they would have on revising their departmental curriculum.  The AAUP proposal is a more honest and upfront way of addressing our workload concerns.  It recognizes the desire of some faculty to have more time to conduct their research.  And, it serves our students’ educational needs without sacrificing the students in the process.  v --  Katy Wiss