Appendix 2: Faculty Workload

Instructional Categories

Three categories of full-time faculty teaching load and ranges under the semester system are as follows:

• Lecture Classes: 28-30 contact hours per year – Target 30
• Lecture/Lab Classes: 34-40 contact hours per year – Target 36
• Laboratory Classes: 46-50 contact hours per year – Target 50

It is recognized that the titles of these categories may neither represent the various pedagogies that take place in the classroom nor always reflect the work associated with those various pedagogies.

There are no guarantees for either minimums or maximums required of an individual faculty member. The faculty will have an annual load within the stated range. Faculty within departments and/or disciplines have collaborated with their respective Academic Administrator to define the category in which each course in their respective department/discipline fit. A course’s instructional category is reflected in its CCO. The CCO is the recognized source for a course’s approved instructional category. Each course is assigned to only one of the three instructional categories. Each faculty member will collaborate with their Academic Administrator to plan annual teaching assignments.

Instructional Units

Instructional units shall be used to measure full-time faculty load. Instructional units are calculated using the ratio that 30 (the target annual contact hours for lecture courses) bears to the target contact hours in an instructional category. Thus, the following ratios apply:

A full-time load consists of 28 – 30 instructional units taught during fall and spring semesters. The target is 30 instructional units. In the event of unusual circumstances, a reduction below 30 instructional units could be approved through the Academic Administrator, Dean, and the Provost of Academic Affairs.

Overload is paid when instructional units taught by a full-time faculty member exceed 30 in an academic year (not including summer). Overload may be paid during a single semester when instructional units exceed 15 (10 for the summer term). Overload is paid at the current adjunct rate based on contact hours, not on instructional units, and in accordance with current overload policy and procedures. Additional preparation compensation will not be provided for overload courses requested by the faculty member. If an academic administrator requests faculty to include a unique preparation as overload, compensation will be provided (see next section).

Composition Courses

Full-time faculty teaching the composition courses listed below will receive an additional contact hour per section for load purposes unless they choose to opt out in consultation with the academic supervisor.

Faculty who receive the additional hour will spend that contact hour consulting within the Student Writing & Reading Center. Faculty may take one additional contact hour per section up to a maximum of three contact hours per semester.

Composition course sections are capped at 25 students.

Preparations

Underlying Premise: A full-time faculty member at Salt Lake Community College is expected to have multiple preparations as part of his or her teaching assignment. However, in order to assure the quality of education, a faculty member generally will not teach more than 60% of their load in unique preparations in any given semester.

Certain programs within the College may not permit the limitation of preparations to 60% of the load because of the uniqueness of the programs or the courses; therefore, faculty preparations in these programs could regularly exceed the 60% of load limitation, but shall not exceed 80% of the load in unique preparations.

Reasonable effort should be made to avoid exceeding these limitations by adjusting the assignment of courses with other full-time or adjunct faculty within the department. Exceptions to these limitations should result from an agreement between the Academic Administrator and the full-time faculty member. The final decision will reside with the Academic Administrator, with approval of the Dean and appealed, if necessary, to the Provost.

In the event that it is necessary for the academic administrator and a faculty member to acknowledge and schedule the faculty member for a load consisting of more than 80% of unique preparations, with a minimum of not less than three (3) unique preparations, the faculty member will be paid at the overload rate for three additional overload hours.

When overload courses are scheduled, the assignment of courses to either load or overload in order to deny a faculty member the application of the provisions of this section is not permitted.

Definitions

Load: Faculty load is defined by the current load document, and maybe more or less than fifteen (15) instructional units, excluding overload in any given semester.

Preparation: One preparation is generally defined as the preparation required for each course of a different course number that is not cross-listed with another course, taught simultaneously with another course or team-taught with another instructor.

Reassigned time: Only teaching assignments are considered preparations. The reassigned time or other administrative duties that may be assigned are not a teaching preparation for the purposes of this section.

Online courses: Online courses, hybrid courses, or courses taught on a different daily schedule do not constitute unique preparations from those same numbered courses taught onsite or on a different schedule.

Program/Course Control

Scheduling of courses is the responsibility of instructional departments, whether those courses are traditional, blended, or distance in nature. All actions pertaining to scheduling of courses must be coordinated with instructional departments, based upon a combination of department and college needs, prior to formal scheduling deadlines.

Service

Faculty involvement through College service and committee service is critical in the direction and planning initiatives of the College. All full-time faculty are expected to participate in these service activities as a part of their total assignment. When reassigned time is granted to a faculty member, such reassigned time does not replace the service obligation.

It is recognized that the time spent fulfilling committee assignments in a professional manner represents a significant portion of a faculty member’s load. The following are guidelines for the service obligation:

1. The faculty load categories will include a service component, as stipulated in the Faculty Evaluation document and the Tenure Policy. In planning each year for the faculty member’s instructional load, the faculty member and the Academic Administrator shall also plan for a reasonable commitment to service. Departments and Academic Administrators shall, in consultation, set guidelines in writing for what constitutes, for that area, a reasonable commitment to service. For purposes of equitability across schools and across the college, such departmental guidelines shall be subject to periodic discussion and review by Dean and the Provost. (See Appendix)

2. Faculty evaluation for each faculty member will include an evaluation of a faculty member’s contributions through service. (See Instructions for Faculty Evaluation document for information about appropriate evidence to document service.) College-wide committee assignments will be made through a collaboration between the leadership of the Faculty Senate and the Academic Administration.

Reassigned Time

In order to support critical work that can best be done by the full-time faculty member, the College grants targeted reassigned time. Because the College values the teaching efforts of full-time faculty members, we agree to work within defined parameters for reassigned time, and to regularly account for how reassigned time is used.

Definition: Reassigned time is replacing a portion of a full-time faculty member’s teaching obligation with a non-teaching, administrative, or academic support duty. A portion of a faculty member’s annual workload obligation is “reassigned” or allocated for tasks such as grant administration, accreditation preparation, faculty leadership, and in learning centers, equipment and laboratory maintenance, etc. Reassigned time allocations may be ongoing allocations (that is, continuing from year to year) or temporary.

Addition of Faculty Summer Leaders to Reassigned Time

One faculty member from Faculty Senate and one from Faculty Association will serve as faculty leaders during the summer months. They will attend institutional meetings as mutually agreed upon and will continue work on ongoing projects. They will represent faculty, solicit feedback from faculty, and bring together available faculty when needed. This position receives a one-course reassigned time and cannot exceed the allowable summer workload.

Those who fill this position will be selected at the end of each academic year—during the final Senate and Association meetings—according to this hierarchy of availability: current President, immediate Past- President, Vice-President, a current committee chair. When selecting the summer leader from this hierarchical line, emphasis should be placed on experience and continuity.

Approved Ongoing Reassigned Time: The following represents our current agreement as to approved types and amounts of reassigned time. In the case of a temporary need for these positions to receive the additional reassigned time, administrators may take this to Discussion Team for approval.

Faculty Leadership

Faculty Development

Community Writing Center

Faculty Professional Development

Temporary Reassigned Time: Periodically, SLCC assigns faculty to tasks that are beyond the scope of the faculty member’s regular service obligation, but are temporary in nature, such as grant administration, professional development activities, curriculum development, etc. For many of these tasks, faculty may be remunerated with additional monetary compensation in the form of one-time contracts; alternatively, it may be preferable to remunerate faculty with reassigned time on a temporary basis. Temporary reassigned time is not intended to replace the regular service obligation that is part of the job description of every full-time faculty member.

The total amount of reassigned time, both ongoing and temporary, generally will not exceed 6% of the full- time faculty instructional units in the College overall. Deans, in full consultation with faculty and academic administrators, have the latitude to approve reassigned time, up to a threshold of 5% of full-time faculty instructional units in the school. Approved ongoing reassigned time does not count against the Dean’s 5% threshold. 

Deans and Academic Administrators will report to the Provost, on a semester-by-semester basis, the reassigned time within the school. The Discussion Team will review the data on reassigned time annually to ensure equitability and functionality of this distribution.

The following formula will be used to derive the available reassigned time in each school:

[# of full-time faculty in the school] x [30 instructional units] [.025] x = [instructional units available for reassigned time]