School of Social Welfare Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty Workload

Tenure

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DOCUMENT TYPE:

Policy

PURPOSE:

Provides the description of workload expectations for tenured/tenure-track faculty

APPLIES TO:

Tenured/tenure-track faculty of the School of Social Welfare

CAMPUS:

Lawrence, Edwards

POLICY STATEMENT:

PART I. ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING GUIDELINES

PHILOSOPHICAL ASSUMPTIONS

The total workload of the School, encompassing teaching, scholarship, and service, should, in so far as possible, be divided equitably among faculty. All faculty are expected to contribute to each of these workload components, in alignment with their effort allocation.
The arrangement of the workload should take into account faculty rank, faculty preferences and professional competencies.
Faculty workloads can be differently constituted as long as the needs of the School and issues of equity are taken into account.
The basis for merit assessment should be each faculty member’s agreed-upon workload.

OPERATIONAL ASSUMPTIONS

The plan should spell out general equivalencies among types of activities.
Individual negotiation with the Dean of workload agreement is guided by the parameters of the workload guidelines and by the needs of the School. Faculty workload agreements should take into account needs in the following areas: teaching, scholarship, service, and administrative appointments. All differential workload agreements are documented and filed in the faculty personnel record.

PART II. STANDARD DISTRIBUTION OF WORK OVER THE ACADEMIC YEAR

The standard workload distribution is designed to support faculty in meeting tenure requirements and ongoing teaching, scholarship, and service productivity: 40% teaching, 40% scholarship, 20% service (i.e., 10% professional advising, 10% unassigned). For example, in a typical 40-hour work week, this equates to 16 hours dedicated to teaching, 16 hours dedicated to scholarship, and 8 hours dedicated to service.

DEFINITIONS OF WORKLOAD

Teaching:

The standard teaching expectation is 40% = teaching four 3-hour classes in an academic year. One 3-hour class equals 10% of that teaching expectation in an academic year.
Mentoring of GTAs, pre-tenured faculty, and adjunct faculty are important components of faculty teaching responsibilities. Mentoring assignments should be equitably distributed across faculty and when assigned, faculty mentors will receive points as specified in the Faculty Evaluation & Merit Guidelines.

Scholarship:

The standard scholarship expectation is 40% = creating 2 standard scholarly products in an academic year. Per the Faculty Evaluation & Merit Guidelines below, a “standard” scholarly product is a peer-reviewed article or book chapter.
Negotiated options to meet the standard scholarship expectation outside of those listed in the Faculty Evaluation & Merit Guidelines below include projects such as writing a major federal grant, running an unfunded project (with time limit), developing a project with high potential for funding, or developing a major project approved as being central to School’s mission. These negotiated options must be approved in advance by the Dean, and merit point equivalence must be negotiated with the Dean. Such agreements are documented and filed in the faculty personnel record.

Service:

The standard service expectation is 20% in an academic year.
10% of this expectation is assigned as professional advising and is expected of all faculty.
10% of this expectation is unassigned and may include service to the School, university, or professionally related service.

RECONCILING ACADEMIC AND CALENDAR YEARS

Workload is distributed over the course of the academic year whereas faculty evaluation and merit are assessed on a calendar year basis. To account for this, the following considerations, expectations, and examples should guide the implementation of these guidelines:

The basis for calendar year faculty evaluation and merit determinations is a combination of two academic years (i.e., spring semester of one, fall semester of the next) and potentially an average of two workload expectations.

All faculty are expected to teach at least one class per academic year. Courses taught in the summer do not count towards these standard teaching expectations.

1. Due to potential workload adjustments, it is possible for a faculty member to not teach any classes in a given calendar year and still fulfill the requirement of teaching “at least one class per academic year” (e.g., teaching one class in fall 2024, no classes in spring or fall 2025, and then teaching one class in spring 2026). A workload adjustment would account for this: 80% scholarship / 20% service in calendar year 2025.

Ideally, all faculty will produce at least one scholarly product per academic year. However, given the unpredictability of publication timelines and variability of scholarly products that may be produced, a faculty member meets standard scholarship workload expectations in any given calendar year by achieving either of the following: Obtaining the appropriate number of scholarship points in that calendar year or obtaining the appropriate number of scholarship points when points are averaged across three calendar years. For example:

1. Faculty with a standard 40% scholarship workload must obtain 40 merit points in that calendar year. Alternatively, faculty with an adjusted scholarship workload must obtain an equivalent number of merit points in that calendar year (e.g., an adjusted 20% or 50% scholarship workload must obtain 20 or 50 merit points, respectively).

2. Faculty with a standard 40% scholarship workload for the past three calendar years must obtain a 3-year average of 40 points (i.e., a total of 120 points over the three years). Alternatively, faculty with variable scholarship workloads for the past three calendar years must obtain a 3-year average equivalent to their average workload (e.g., a faculty member with 20%, 40%, and 50% scholarship workload designations over the course of three years must obtain an average of 37 points, that is, a total of 110 points over the three years).

PART III. WORKLOAD REDISTRIBUTION

NEGOTIATING WORKLOAD PLANS

During the annual faculty evaluation (which occurs during spring semester), a faculty member will prospectively negotiate an adjusted workload as needed with the Dean for the following academic year, based on the equivalencies and parameters above. The faculty member will outline their desired workload distribution and describe how they plan to meet that workload. The Dean can ask for evidence that the faculty member can indeed achieve the proposed workload and can negotiate an alternative workload for the prospective year if evidence is lacking. Any further adjustments to workload must be negotiated during the calendar year for which they will apply. The Dean is responsible for maintaining a record of workload adjustments in anticipation of annual faculty evaluations.

NOTES AND EXCEPTIONS

Although not explicitly expected to teach or produce scholarship under this workload policy document given that the Dean’s contract is 100% administration, the faculty encourage the Dean to periodically teach courses and to continue scholarship activities.

Associate deans, program directors, and other faculty with administrative duties will be expected to teach and perform scholarship consistent with their administrative contracts.

Each year, faculty are expected to negotiate a workload plan they believe they can successfully accomplish during their annual faculty evaluation with the Dean (which occurs during spring semester). When a tenured faculty member does not meet teaching, scholarship, or service expectations in a given calendar year (as defined above), the Dean and the faculty member will determine a workload plan for the next academic year that reflects the needs of the School and the skills of the faculty member.

CONTACT:

Kristin Trendel
Assistant Dean
School of Social Welfare
785-864-8720
katrendel@ku.edu

APPROVED BY:

School of Social Welfare Governing Body

APPROVAL DATE:

2024-12-20

EFFECTIVE DATE: