2008 Woodie Awards
Discussion addresses workload
Megan Munroe
Issue date: 11/30/07 Section: News
Originally published: 11/29/07 at 6:33 PM EST
Last update: 11/29/07 at 6:31 PM EST
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The rule of twelve doesn't apply just to students.
Just as full-time students are required to take 12 credits of classes, full-time faculty also must teach 12 credit hours each week.
This has been the practice at Plattsburgh State since the October 1982 "Supple memo," named after the acting president who put the informal policy in a written memo to department chairs.
Twenty-five years later, the issues surrounding faculty workload, including problem-solving and ensuring fairness, are still debated.
A crowd of about fifty faculty members gathered in Hudson Hall Tuesday to discuss these and other topics relating to workload issues.
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Robert Golden led a question-and-answer session, after briefly presenting the Fact-Finding Committee on Faculty Workload's Interim Report.
Golden distributed copies of the report as well as an information sheet on the standard practices on faculty workload for full-time faculty.
The report outlines the origins of the committee - it set out to find, among other things, what the distribution of workload among faculty on the campus is, to what degree the workload is fairly distributed among faculty and if the faculty productivity within certain departments is sufficient to earn professional accreditation.
"The origins of this did not come from the mind of a provost," Golden said. Some faculty members came to the administration with concerns and questions about varying workloads in different departments.
"When questions of equity are raised, what kind of answers do we give, how do we explain discrepancies?" he said. "More faculty need to understand what is the reality of other disciplines."
There are a few exceptions to the rule of twelve - professors must teach only nine hours of graduate courses, and those professors involve in research and other projects can opt out of three.
But several professors raised the question of where to draw the line - what constitutes a "good excuse" when allowing a professor to teach only nine credits? Are internships, extra advisement and participation in task forces not included?
Just as full-time students are required to take 12 credits of classes, full-time faculty also must teach 12 credit hours each week.
This has been the practice at Plattsburgh State since the October 1982 "Supple memo," named after the acting president who put the informal policy in a written memo to department chairs.
Twenty-five years later, the issues surrounding faculty workload, including problem-solving and ensuring fairness, are still debated.
A crowd of about fifty faculty members gathered in Hudson Hall Tuesday to discuss these and other topics relating to workload issues.
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Robert Golden led a question-and-answer session, after briefly presenting the Fact-Finding Committee on Faculty Workload's Interim Report.
Golden distributed copies of the report as well as an information sheet on the standard practices on faculty workload for full-time faculty.
The report outlines the origins of the committee - it set out to find, among other things, what the distribution of workload among faculty on the campus is, to what degree the workload is fairly distributed among faculty and if the faculty productivity within certain departments is sufficient to earn professional accreditation.
"The origins of this did not come from the mind of a provost," Golden said. Some faculty members came to the administration with concerns and questions about varying workloads in different departments.
"When questions of equity are raised, what kind of answers do we give, how do we explain discrepancies?" he said. "More faculty need to understand what is the reality of other disciplines."
There are a few exceptions to the rule of twelve - professors must teach only nine hours of graduate courses, and those professors involve in research and other projects can opt out of three.
But several professors raised the question of where to draw the line - what constitutes a "good excuse" when allowing a professor to teach only nine credits? Are internships, extra advisement and participation in task forces not included?
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