UMSL Workload Guidelines for Tenure-Track Faculty at UMSL
Principles Underlying Faculty Workload at the University of Missouri-St. Louis1
As a land grant, metropolitan, public research university, the University of Missouri-St. Louis endorses a faculty workload consistent with its mission. The campus requires from the faculty professional engagement in teaching, research/scholarship/creative activity2 ,and service/administrative/economic development3 activities for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge to address educational, social, economic, political, cultural, and artistic opportunities and challenges in the St. Louis metropolitan area and beyond.
UMSL faculty are professional scholars and teachers who fulfill their responsibilities in varied ways. As scholars, they must meet the stringent demands of tenure, promotion, and post-tenure reviews. As scholars, teachers, and colleagues; faculty are held accountable for quality work and high productivity through annual reviews of all aspects of their professional obligations. Such professional activity in the setting of a research university means that the common national measure of employment, a 40-hour workweek, falls far short of the time a UMSL faculty member works each week. Nor do these obligations cease during university holidays. Although the conditions of employment vary considerably by discipline, typically, faculty devote months of uncompensated effort during the summer and student holidays to advance their research, improve their courses, or engage in service and collaborative activities.
However rigorous, professional workload requirements must also reflect the reality that UMSL faculty represent varied academic disciplines that face different market conditions in the academy and other market sectors (private firms, non-governmental organizations, etc.). These differences defy a simplistic formula for workload as units compete within the marketplace to recruit and retain the best faculty. A faculty workload policy requires guidelines that can be interpreted and implemented at the unit level and reviewed for effectiveness at the next administrative level and during five-year program reviews.
Unit administrators4 have the primary responsibility to balance the multiple demands upon their faculty in a way that ensures the effective and efficient delivery of courses and academic programs, supports the research mission of the campus, and encourages service activities. To do this, unit administrators must couple the expectation that the professional effort of every faculty member will equate to full-time engagement in a combination of activities directly related to the campus and unit missions with a flexible, transparent structure that encourages the differential application of faculty talents over the course of a career.
Within public higher education in Missouri, research is uniquely the responsibility of the four campuses of the University of Missouri System and thus central to UMSL's mission. Research and teaching are complementary activities; a faculty member with an active research program will infuse teaching with an enthusiasm born of the quest for new knowledge. The precise percentage of time devoted to research, teaching, and service activities is typically negotiated by the individual faculty member in consultation with and as approved by the unit administrator. The University of Missouri workload policy in Collected Rules and Regulations, 310.080.E. states, No regular faculty member can be assigned either fewer than 12 section credits or fewer than 180 student credit hours per academic year without an instructional waiver.
To fulfill CRR 310.080.A., units must develop workload policies in consultation with the units dean, who, after approving them, will seek the Provosts approval. The following guidelines provide a framework for developing unit-based faculty workloads:
Workload Guidelines for Tenure-Track Faculty at UMSL
Approved by the Provosts Council April 1, 2009