November 1, 2006
The
standard teaching load for full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty is three
courses per semester (Policy Memorandum 3.101, September 1, 1981). For faculty involved in research, graduate
student supervision, and committee work or administration, the standard load is
two organized courses per semester.
Further teaching load reductions may be approved by petition through the
Chair’s Office or the Steering Committee.
Faculty may also earn relief from teaching organized courses through
major contributions in other areas (e.g. PI on a large grant, submission of a
large grant proposal for funding, major administrative service, or for other
reasons determined by the Chair and/or Steering Committee).
Standard
Loads
The Department is responsible for providing
enough courses for all students to progress in their program of study. To
ensure that a sufficient number of courses are available, departmental policy
is for each faculty member to teach at least one required undergraduate or graduate course per
semester. "Required" is defined as either a large class (100+
students), a substantial writing component course, a graduate course that is required either by the department or by
outside accrediting agency, as well as smaller cornerstone courses of various
types. A faculty member who does not meet the
standards set by this policy, may be asked by the Steering Committee to modify his
or her teaching schedule to do so.
Reduced Loads
University
regulations currently require all faculty to teach at
least one course per semester.
Therefore, even faculty with a reduced teaching load will ordinarily
teach at least two required courses a year.
In cases where a course is dropped due to a reduced load, faculty should
retain the course that best serves the greater good of all students. If dropping a particular course would
significantly diminish the mission of the department, a faculty member may be
asked to change the decision. In cases
of dispute, the Steering Committee/Budget Council is the final arbiter of what
serves that greater good (see section on appeals).
Faculty may not receive both a
Dean’s Fellowship/Faculty Research Award (FRA) and a light load in any fiscal
year without the Steering Committee’s consent.
A faculty member teaching a 2/1 or 1/2 course load and who subsequently
receives a Dean’s Fellow or FRA, should take that appointment during the light
semester.
Failure to Meet Departmental Course Needs
If a required or otherwise
necessary course is not been offered by any faculty member in a semester where
it is needed, the policy passed by the Budget Council will be implemented. Specifically, the Faculty Undergraduate
Advisor (UGA) will identify potential professors for the missing class and he
or she will try to resolve the problem with the potential candidates. If no resolution can be reached, the Steering
Committee will attempt to solve the problem.
If there continues to be no resolution, the problem will pass to the
Budget Council for final resolution.
The Department
encourages faculty to experiment and to explore new and flexible teaching
approaches. The scope of such
experimentation includes team-teaching, both within the department and across
departments and colleges, honors courses, Plan II courses, courses that mix
graduate and undergraduate students, and in general all approaches that enrich
the fabric of the university’s teaching mission. To prevent problems, faculty should check
university regulations when planning an atypical class.
These policies are intended to provide a living,
flexible set of guidelines to fulfill the department’s teaching mission and to
resolve problems that may arise in the course of doing so. The intent of these policies is to enable
faculty to contribute to the greater good of the university, not to restrict
such a contribution. To that end, any
faculty member who believes that his or her contribution to the department and
to the university has been impeded by a policy-based decision should request a
review by the Steering Committee and/or the Budget Council.