This policy replaces the CALS Teaching Workload Policy approved on Sept. 28, 2020
Rationale
Currently CALS has the lowest CFI/instructional faculty/staff of UW-Madison undergraduate colleges, thus we have set a goal to increase group instruction by 20%. Maximizing teaching effort by meeting course enrollment minima, offering some low enrollment courses every other year, and updating curricula should also be a focus for departments. These are the current University enrollment minima:
- Courses numbered below 300: 15 students
- Courses numbered 300 to 699: 12 students
- Courses numbered 700 and above: 8 students
Policy
In CALS, group instruction of undergraduate and graduate students is central to our mission. Given this importance, it is the policy of the college that all tenured and tenure-track faculty in the college will actively participate in teaching, with exceptions for extension-funded faculty (see below).
Implementation of this policy will be achieved by a coordinated effort from college leadership and Chairs of each department within the college. Chairs are responsible for setting teaching goals of the department, and ensuring the department meets instructional obligations to support degree programs, which may involve assigning extra courses to faculty so as to meet immediate teaching needs. Chairs are also responsible for ensuring there is an equitable distribution of teaching assignments and balancing the departmental need for instruction with the various career and developmental needs of faculty. To help ensure an equitable teaching assignment distribution, teaching effort calculation factors should include contact hours, number of students, and extra effort for labs and discussions. In general the process of teaching assignments will follow this outline:
- The Chair and the Dean will discuss the department’s past teaching record each year at the college departmental evaluation meetings in February using data provided to departments in late Fall. This will provide an opportunity for sharing expected teaching goals, and new academic programs or courses being developed. The chair will comment on individual faculty teaching performance, and these data will help inform future merit salary increases.
- Each department will maintain a teaching load policy, shared with the college, that delineates the teaching expectations within the department. Departments should consider how changes to group instruction course assignments will impact its overall performance on Credit Follows Instructor (CFI), a key campus and college teaching metric related to how the college distributes funds to units. When faculty are teaching a portion of a group instruction course, they should receive credit for the same portion of the course that they teach.
- Assignment of teaching duties within departments will be coordinated by the Chair or the Chair’s designee.
- Faculty who cannot meet their instructional minimum due to personal, health, etc., reasons should work with their Chair and the college to apply for Modified Duties. For more information see the CALS policy on Modified Duties. In some cases the college will consider a Faculty Buyout of teaching commitments. For more information please see the CALS policy for Faculty to Request and Fund Buyout of Teaching.
Faculty who receive 75% or more salary funding from Extension (so-called 104 and 143 funds) are exempt from this policy. CALS Extension faculty with less than 75% should work with their Chair and mentoring committees to determine an appropriate teaching load and assignment, with the expectation that it will be adjusted in accordance with their 104 and 143 funding.