APPLICABILITY: TENURE-TRACK AND TENURED FACULTY

Purpose.  Faculty members at the University of North Texas have a variety of duties and responsibilities associated with the mission of the institution, including the essential functions of teaching, research, creative activities, and professional service.  Work in these areas constitutes the faculty member’s professional obligation to the University. Annual merit evaluation will be based on the quality of the faculty member’s contributions in these areas of responsibility. 

The responsibility for assigning faculty workloads shall rest with the dean, and typically will be delegated to the department chair.  Workloads for individual faculty shall be determined according to procedures that maximize the department’s overall quality and effectiveness. The collective faculty work assignments should yield a balanced portfolio of activities for each department. For each individual faculty member, the annual merit evaluation must be based on the assigned workload and must take into account the quality of professional contributions in proportion to the percentage of time assigned to particular areas of work. 

Implementation of the policy

Each college/school and department shall have approved guidelines for determining which activities fulfill its mission in the areas of teaching, research/creative activities, and service. Each department shall publish guidelines on both faculty workload assignment and annual merit evaluation, developed in consultation with the faculty and approved by the dean. Eligibility of faculty for merit salary increases will be determined in accordance with the workload and evaluation guidelines. 

Each college/school shall develop a schedule for accomplishing the annual performance evaluations that is responsive to University requirements and that allows faculty participation in the annual review process at the department level.

Principles of workload assignment to be implemented in departmental procedures

1. Because chairs are responsible for managing department resources, including developing the course schedule, they are responsible for making faculty teaching assignments. The course schedule must be developed in such a way as to be responsive primarily to student needs, but also to the requirements of accrediting agencies and other such external bodies, such as the Coordinating Board, as needs arise. The course schedule and the associated faculty resources must serve the greatest institutional needs.

2. Research and service contributions vary significantly across the faculty and for reasons of equity; teaching assignments and loads must vary. Therefore, fixed teaching loads for all faculty members in a unit are not acceptable. 

3. Departments should strive for an overall balance of faculty work across the unit that closely approximates 40% effort in research/creative activities, 40% effort in teaching, and 20% effort in professional service. Because disciplines may have different needs and expectations and teaching assignments may require a greater or lesser investment of time, this guideline should be interpreted in the local (departmental) context.  

4. Faculty effort should be directed towards the areas of greatest need and the greatest overall good. Thus, the distribution of effort may change from year-to-year, or even semester-to-semester. 

5. Interdisciplinary and cross-unit assignments, including teaching assignments, should be encouraged and rewarded, especially when they support the academic or strategic plan, improve learning outcomes, increase productivity or decrease costs.
 
6. Probationary faculty should have workload assignments that permit an emphasis on those activities most important for success in the tenure and promotion process – typically with reduced emphasis on service responsibilities.

Examples of work assignment distributions

Assuming a “normal” class size and delivery method, responsibility for a single class in a given semester would represent approximately 10% of faculty effort.  Larger or smaller classes, innovative teaching methods, use of distributed learning techniques, oversight of teaching assistants or fellows, coordination of multi-section courses, etc. may require more or less than 10%, and must be considered in the local context.

In units in which a 40-40-20 balance cannot be achieved because student demand far exceeds faculty resources, recognition must be given in the annual evaluation process for greater than 40% effort in teaching.  Equally, if resources allow an assignment of greater than 40% to research or creative activities, the annual evaluation guidelines must clearly require exceptional productivity in this area for merit considerations. Unless a faculty member has a recognized administrative position (e.g. chair, associate dean) the assignment to service should not, except in very unusual circumstances, exceed 20%.

A 40-40-20 assignment would be achieved by a faculty member teaching 2 “normal” classes (see discussion above) each fall and spring semester  (summer teaching is not covered in this workload policy, but may be taken into account in special circumstances), being actively engaged in research/creative activities, and providing a normal amount of academic service (committee assignments, etc.)

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*At the present time, in most departments, there are insufficient faculty resources to achieve a true 40-40-20 balance. This guideline should be interpreted, therefore, as a goal to be achieved through the regular personnel exercise process.

A 50-40-10 assignment would allow for 40% time spent on research/creative activities with a teaching assignment of 3/2 or 2/3, but with less departmental or college service expected.

A 50-30-20 assignment places more emphasis on teaching (3/2 or 2/3), and a 60-20-20 or 60-30-10 assignment (3/3) more emphasis still.

For faculty teaching 4 courses per semester at the approximate weight of 10% per course (e.g. 80-10-10 or 80-0-20), it would be expected that 80% of effort be invested in teaching, and the annual evaluation process should take this into account.
 
These general work assignment distributions are provided as examples, but other alternatives are possible.

Principles of faculty evaluation to be implemented in departmental procedures

1. Each faculty member (tenured, tenure-track, and continuing lecturers) shall be evaluated annually based on criteria established by the department and approved by the dean.

2. Each faculty member (tenured, tenure-track, and continuing lecturers) shall be informed in writing of the results of her/his review by the unit administrator (usually the department chair) or the responsible review committee.

3. Each unit (usually the department) shall have clearly formulated, written, and publically-accessible performance criteria upon which the annual review will be based. These performance criteria must be made known to all faculty at the time of appointment, and subsequently as necessary to ensure that all faculty are aware of the criteria by which their annual performance will be evaluated.

4. Faculty will have all assigned duties given weight in the evaluation. Faculty annual merit evaluation must be tailored to the nature of the workload assignment, and therefore merit evaluation procedures must take into account the varying workloads in existence at the time the merit review takes place.

5. Faculty will be given an explanation how factors used in the performance evaluation are related to recommendations on merit-based salary adjustments. (Other sorts of salary adjustment processes, as may occur from time-to-time to meet institutional or department needs may require use of separately developed policies.)

6. For probationary faculty, the relationship between annual merit evaluations and promotion and tenure reviews must be clearly articulated in department policies. For tenured faculty, the relationship between work assignment and annual merit evaluations and how they impact promotion to professor must be clearly articulated in department policies.  (See also VPAA policy on promotion and tenure.)

Principle of due process for faculty complaints

Each college/school shall be responsible for developing a process for reviewing faculty complaints associated with the workload and/or merit evaluation processes that allow faculty participation in the college/school-level review. Faculty complaints become formal grievances to be heard at the college/school-level only if they are not successfully resolved to the faculty member’s satisfaction at the unit/department level. A grievance relating to workload or annual evaluation will be heard at the University level only in circumstances in which no lower level recourse to a resolution remains for the faculty member. Any grievance associated with the workload and/or merit evaluation process must be submitted in writing at the department level within 14 calendar days of the decision that triggers the grievance to be eligible for possible University-level review.