Faculty Differentiated Workload Guidance

• Executive Summary
• Introduction
• Purpose of Differentiated Workload Policy
• General Workload Guidelines and Procedures
• Areas of Faculty Responsibility
• Workload Expectations
• Percentages and Full Time Equivalents (FTE)
• Role of Academic Unit Supervisors (AUSs)
• Workload Planning Guidance
• Process for Annual Work Plan
• Description of Work Plan and Self-Reflection Process
• Planning for Next Cycle’s Work Plan
• Final AUS Evaluation
• Revision of Faculty Workload Plans

Executive Summary

This document’s intent is to provide guidance to academic units as they develop policies related to faculty workload grounded in the diversity of needs and approaches across disciplines at UNCW. In this context, faculty workload includes, but is not limited to, teaching, advising and mentoring, research, scholarship, creative activities, community engagement, and institutional, professional, and public service. The exact nature and balance of these aspects varies among disciplines and specific assignments/positions (e.g. positions with primarily teaching expectations or a position with teaching, scholarly activity, and service expectations). The goal then is to outline equitable and fair guidelines for faculty workload that advances UNCW’s academic mission, recognizes the wide variety of workload areas to which faculty contribute, and maintains compliance with the UNC System Policy 400.3.4 – Policy on Faculty Workload and the UNC System Regulation 400.3.4[R] on Faculty Workload. Likewise, it updates UNCW's former workload policy, endorsed in April of 2022.

Each academic unit (AU, defined in the document) should establish, publish, monitor, and report on workload guidelines that involve its faculty members. In doing so, each AU should keep in mind student success and financial considerations, remain in compliance with the missions of the university, the AU’s college or equivalent, and remain in accordance with the UNC System Policy 400.3.4 – Policy on Faculty Workload and the UNC System Regulation 400.3.4[R] on Faculty Workload. It is possible that a college policy adequately governs workload for most AUs in the college, thus they potentially would not need to build separate workload documents.

As general guidelines, each workload policy should:

• Establish procedures for annual workload plans, recognizing the occasional need for equitable differentiated workload assignments.
• Establish typical percentages of effort for research and creative activity; teaching, mentoring, and advising; and service and other directed professional activities for faculty in each AU and for each faculty appointment type.
• Provide guidelines for when deviations from those typical percentages for a given AU and appointment type may be approved by the academic unit supervisor (AUS), dean, and/or provost.

Any AU that does not implement its own workload policy will default to the college workload policy until such a time as an AU policy is established.

All full-time faculty members, regardless of contract length, must have a workload plan. Faculty members who are employed on less than a nine-month annual basis or are less than full-time may have a workload plan if directed by their AU supervisor. Each faculty member’s workload plan should be developed in consultation with and approved by the AU supervisor and by that AU’s dean or designee as necessary and should account for 100% workload expectations.

A typical 3-credit hour (or equivalent contact hours) organized class is equivalent to 10% of workload and reflects a typical 50% -80% teaching allocation depending on the type of position and varying with specific position expectations (specific examples and exceptions are described in the full document and should be indicated in University and college policies).

Broadly, workload plan discussions should have the goals of:

• Meeting program area, department, college, and university goals in teaching, scholarship, and service. This includes meeting instructional needs.
• Facilitating the professional development of faculty.
• Linking workload to annual evaluation and to discussions of reappointment, promotion, and tenure, as well as post-tenure review.
• Including the outputs and efforts a faculty member is expected to complete in the next academic year.

Annual evaluations should be grounded in documented work plans and inform merit pay. College policies and procedures regarding the annual review process must be readily accessible to faculty.

Finally, AUs will specify the means and extent by which research and creative activity, teaching, and service count towards a faculty member’s total workload percentages based on the college guidelines, but also remain flexible dependent upon professional/disciplinary differences.

This flexibility is contingent upon meeting the pedagogical and instructional needs of the AU, but ultimately, faculty will work in collaboration with their AUS to integrate individual professional development plans into work plans. Faculty and AUs will determine the evidence that will be used to assess achievement of annual goals and will reflect on accomplishments and needed revisions on an annual basis.

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Introduction

Key to the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s academic success is the university’s integration of faculty teaching and mentoring with research/creative activities and service. Faculty and their annually reported contributions are core to our mission, as per UNC System Policy 400.3.4. These contributions include, but are not limited to, teaching, advising and mentoring, research, scholarship, creative activities, community engagement, and institutional, professional, and public service. The multifaceted work of UNCW faculty is likewise integrated into instruction and encourages students to process disciplinary information deeply, critically, and creatively.

The intent of this document is to introduce a framework for academic departments and colleges at UNCW – termed an “academic unit” (AU) – that will clarify how best to account for the manifold ways faculty display their expertise, regardless of employment category (i.e., clinical-track, lecture-track, professional-track faculty, or tenured, tenure track faculty in the colleges/schools and the University Library). In this document, when the term "college" is used, it refers to: CHHS, CHSSA, CSE, CSB, WCE, and UNCW Library.

These workload guidelines represent expectations for faculty workload that advance UNCW’s academic mission at large, recognize the wide variety of workload areas to which a wide variety of faculty contribute, and maintain compliance with the UNC System Policy 400.3.4 and the Regulation 400.3.4[R] on Faculty Workload.

The university recognizes there are legitimate differences in AU and faculty development needs, interests, and abilities and the differentiated workload framework is provided as a measure of flexibility to take these differences into account when planning.

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Purpose of Differentiated Workload Policy

Differentiated workload requires transparency about the degree to which a faculty member’s engagement with research, scholarship, and creative and community work are aligned with teaching, instruction, advising and mentoring, as well as their professional aspirations and the needs of the AU, college, and university mission at large.

To this end, differentiated workload describes a mechanism for supporting faculty that offers a transparent way to align the needs of the university and specific programs with the contributions of individual faculty members. Workload in this context is defined as all activities that faculty engage with as part of their employment with the university, including (but not limited to) teaching, advising and mentoring, research, scholarship, creative activities, community engagement, and institutional, professional, and public service.

Per UNCW System Policy, each full-time faculty member shall engage in approved work that totals to 1.0 Full-Time Equivalency (FTE). Some faculty members fulfill this approved workload primarily through teaching. These faculty balance a teaching load with additional service obligations and professional development opportunities. In terms of percent of time devoted to mission, these faculty will focus 80% of time to teaching and 20% of time to service, scholarship/research, and/or professional development. These percentages assume that one 3-credit equivalent is equal to 10% of workload. Variances to the formulas will exist across AUs.

Other faculty members fulfill a 1.0 FTE workload through heightened research and/or service in addition to teaching. For example, a faculty member engaged in scholarly or artistic pursuits in the fulfillment of the mission of UNCW might decrease the percent of time devoted to teaching to pursue scholarly or creative activities. In terms of percent of time devoted to mission, these faculty will focus up to 50% of time to teaching and 50% of time to research/scholarship, service, and professional development.

Within this context, the goal is to outline equitable and fair guidelines for faculty workload that advance UNCW’s academic mission, recognize the wide variety of workload areas to which faculty contribute, and maintain compliance with the UNC System Policy 400.3.4 and the Regulation 400.3.4[R] on Faculty Workload.

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General Workload Guidelines and Procedures

As part of differentiated workload policy implementation, each AU must establish a set of guidelines for faculty with transparency and equity directing the process. While each AU will generate their own policy expectations based on internal demands as well as external considerations, below are enumerated a set of guidelines that each AU should review when building their own.

Each AU should establish, publish, monitor, and report on workload guidelines that best involve its faculty members and align their efforts in accordance with the UNC System Policy 400.3.4 and the Regulation 400.3.4[R] on Faculty Workload. In doing so, each AU will likewise keep in mind student success and financial considerations and remain in alignment with the missions of the university, college and equivalent AUs in those contexts.

Each faculty workload policy should address these guidelines within the context of the AU’s stated needs relative to those of the college. All college policies require review and approval by the provost and vice chancellor for Academic Affairs and any AU that does not implement its own workload policy will default to a general college workload policy until AU policy is established. It is possible that a college policy adequately governs workload for most AUs in the college, thus they potentially would not need to build separate workload documents.

As general guidelines, each policy should:

• Establish typical percentages of effort for research and creative activity; teaching, mentoring, and advising; and service and other directed professional activity (see below) for faculty in each AU and for each faculty appointment type in a manner consistent with the missions of UNCW and the college.
• Provide guidelines for when deviations from those typical percentages for a given AU and appointment type may be approved by the AUS, dean, and provost.
• Acknowledge that any AU that does not implement its own workload policy will default to the college workload policy until such a time as an AU policy is established.

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Areas of Faculty Responsibility

As already stated, faculty at UNCW have varying degrees of responsibility in broad areas that include research/scholarship; teaching, and service (including community engagement and service to the department/school/program, AU, institution, profession/discipline, and University System). This policy attempts to grant broad license to AUs to define these areas in a manner that comports with the conventions of their field and functions in alignment with college policy and the university’s mission.

Additionally, this general policy, as per UNC System Regulation 400.3.4[R] on Faculty Workload, acknowledges that the same activity may be defined differently in different AUs or depending on the population being served. For example, “clinical supervision” may count as a teaching activity or as a community-engagement activity. UNC System Policy 400.3.4 and accompanying Regulation 400.3.4[R] enumerate a vast array of possible activities that can constitute these areas of responsibility.

Per the UNCW Faculty Handbook, academic advising at the AU level shall be included as a component of teaching and shall be assigned a level of effort consistent with college policy. Colleges should determine where other activities will be attributed across the faculty workload expectations (teaching, research, and service) in a manner consistent with the UNCW Faculty Handbook. Likewise, honors courses or approved interdisciplinary courses should be counted as any other course in a faculty member’s teaching load. AUs should assign such courses in an equitable manner and in such frequency as appropriate to meet unit goals and objectives, although the needs of the AU are paramount.

This document likewise acknowledges that there is a group of activities at UNCW referred to as “Directed Professional Activity” that may be defined differently depending on the field of study. Directed Professional Activity consists of professional activities that must be dictated or assigned by a dean or AUS, which may include but are not limited to: program direction or coordination; administrative or service roles of individuals who, in conjunction with their faculty rank, hold some administrative title or position other than dean or AUS; faculty who do not hold a separate title, but are assigned AU duties similar to those of staff. This practice may occur in different forms or arenas depending on the field.

AUs will specify the means and extent by which research and creative activity, teaching, and service count towards a faculty member’s total workload percentages based on the college guidelines, but also remain flexible dependent upon professional/disciplinary differences. This flexibility is contingent upon meeting the pedagogical and instructional needs of the AU, but ultimately, faculty will work in collaboration with their AUS to integrate individual professional development plans into work plans. In doing so, they will consider the needs of the AU, college, and the university mission as well as attempt to identify resources that support accomplishing these goals. Faculty and AUs will determine the evidence that will be used to assess achievement of annual goals and will reflect on accomplishments and needed revisions on an annual basis.

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Workload Expectations

While all faculty at UNCW have exhibited time and again the excellence necessary to maintain the university’s reputation for high quality, academically rigorous programs, each AU has its own means of achieving that end. Particular models that work for one unit will not necessarily work for another. As a result, each college must establish a standard workload for research, scholarship, and creative activities; teaching, mentoring, and advising; community engagement and directed professional activities; and institutional, professional, and public service.

In order to clarify the notion of workload as it applies to UNCW’s AUs–specifically, the distribution of faculty effort across the areas of instruction, scholarship, and service–goals of this discussion around workload exists to:

• Facilitate the accomplishment of program area, department, college, and university goals in teaching, scholarship, and service.
• Facilitate the professional development of faculty.
• Maintain and possibly increase student credit hour production as well as numbers of majors as well as other students engaged with the AU in some meaningful way.
• Link workload to evaluation to discussions of reappointment, promotion, and tenure, as well as post- tenure review and annual evaluations.
• Include the outputs and efforts a faculty member is expected to complete in the next academic year, with a clear linkage towards long-term evaluation (e.g., reappointment, promotion, tenure, post-tenure review).
• Each faculty member’s workload plan should be developed in consultation with and approved by the AU supervisor and by that AU’s dean or designee as necessary.

Each full-time faculty member will engage in work responsibilities equal to their FTE status, as assigned by their AUs. AU policies shall describe the process for establishing individual faculty workload expectations in accordance with the respective missions of each AU, research goals, student success, and fiscal considerations, and in a collaborative process between faculty and their AUS.

Recognizing the variation that exists in terms of faculty experience and position types, AUSs should strive to ensure equity among AU faculty in the assignment of workload responsibilities. In this policy, workload shall be measured through percentages, with percentages assigned to each category of faculty workload.

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Percentages and Full-Time Equivalents (FTE)

All full-time faculty members, regardless of contract length, must have a workload plan (see below for details). Faculty members who are employed on less than a nine-month annual basis or are less than 0.75 time may have a workload plan if directed by their AUS.

Tenure-track faculty are generally expected to carry out research, scholarship, and creative activities as a major part of their workload and therefore faculty with research expectations and outcomes typically teach fewer than 24 credit hours per academic year.

The workload for an appointment of less than 1.0 FTE shall modify the above definition of workload in a manner that is proportional to the FTE. A typical 3-credit hour (or equivalent contact hours) organized class is equivalent to 10% of workload and is based on a typical 50% teaching allocation. Upon approval of the dean, the percentages may be adjusted by the AUS in consideration of factors such as course level, whether a class is team taught, class size, and other factors as indicated in UNC System Policy 400.3.4.

Workload assignments must likewise account for faculty members who teach exceptionally large sections (recognizing the great variation in normal class sizes by discipline) and/or have additional responsibilities for research or creative activities, advising, mentoring, service, administrative duties, community engagement, and other scholarly activities.

With respect to courses, adjustments away from the 10% standard are allowed; conditions for such adjustments should be articulated in college policy and clearly correlate to the level of effort required by faculty to deliver a particular course. These course level standards (course prefix, course number, approved cap, and assigned effort) shall be maintained by the colleges, evaluated annually, and reviewed by the provost.

Thus, adjustable teaching loads may be used to reflect these individual differences. AUs and colleges should recognize the differences in service workload at the AU, college, university, or system levels; at regional, state, national, and international professional services; and serving as a member of a committee compared to serving as an AUS. This policy provides flexibility for different types of service to be recognized at different but equitable percentages.

Annually, faculty will be expected to engage in a collaborative discussion with their AUSs about the workload needs of the department, school, or program. AUSs hold responsibility and authority for the issuance of faculty workload assignments.

In addition to confirming each faculty member’s percentage of contribution to the university by category, the faculty work plan shall specify future outcomes a faculty member deems achievable. Furthermore, these outcomes should be aligned with the faculty member’s annual reviews and demonstrate a clear link to reappointment, promotion, tenure, and/or post-tenure review, as appropriate.

Annual evaluations are grounded in the documented work plans and inform merit pay. College policies and procedures regarding the annual review process must be readily accessible to faculty. Note that these annual reviews evaluate a single year’s performance in a faculty member’s career, whereas tenure, promotion, and post‐tenure evaluations assess a body of work over a specified period of time. Thus, annual activities and evaluations may inform tenure and promotion decisions, but tenure and promotion decisions are not based solely on annual evaluations.

Completed annually on a date set by the provost and an outline of the primary work activities for the following academic year, the faculty work plan is a crucial ingredient of the regular review which comes at the end of each academic year. Revisions to these plans may occur throughout the academic year as circumstances require (faculty members should document and submit these revisions to their AUS as part of their regular annual report).

Any notion of a typical workload as defined by the college may differ among AUs based on discipline and faculty rank, but within a discipline and faculty rank, the activities associated with a given workload should be consistent. Any variation from this notion of a standard represents a differentiated workload and should be only approved after careful consideration with all involved parties on the department level.

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Role of Academic Unit Supervisors (AUSs)

Academic unit supervisors are responsible for working cooperatively with faculty to establish individual workloads consistent with the 1.0 FTE requirement (or equivalent for faculty appointed at less than full-time) that recognize individual faculty members’ contributions to the university in alignment with institutional policies, procedures, resources, and mission, as well as with student success and financial contexts.

Although faculty members will work in collaboration with AUSs to build a productive and desirable work plan, ultimate responsibility and authority for the issuance of faculty workload assignments lies with the AUS, subject to situation-specific review and approval by the dean.

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Workload Planning Guidance

Ideally, each AU will build a plan for workload expectations and accompanying guidelines in consultation with AUSs and fellow faculty that reasserts an existing protocol (or revises it). Yet given the complexity of faculty workload, a fully comprehensive scheme that accurately represents all factors may not be quickly achieved or even ultimately possible or desirable.

Nevertheless, transparency on major factors considered in workload assignments is a worthwhile goal and a foundation for the implementation of sound policy. A consistent and transparent work plan for each faculty member is a key part of equitable workload distribution in combination with the already familiar annual report. In general terms, the purpose of the work plan is:

• To clarify the process and support the implementation of workload differentiation.
• To create an opportunity for professional advancement and workload planning by developing annual goals for teaching, scholarship, and service.
• To promote conversation between the AUS and the faculty member to identify resources needed for achieving professional goals, to consider how individual professional goals align with the needs of the AU and the mission of the university, to plan a sustainable and productive workload.
• To be used in evaluating the outcome of professional goals yearly by determining evidence of success or progress toward goals appropriate to the faculty discipline as determined by the AU.
• To promote reflection regarding accomplishments and needed revisions of professional goals.
• To reinforce individual and institutional accountability.

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Process for the Annual Work Plan

A faculty work plan is a key part of implementing differentiated workload practices that make the equitable distribution of time and resources across disciplines and colleges a most desired outcome. The revised annual process is designed to support faculty planning, growth, and assessment, and the work plan will serve as a map for the faculty member at the beginning of the academic year when, at a particular time designated by the AU, faculty will articulate and prioritize goals for teaching, scholarship, and service and, in the process, create their work plan document in collaboration with the AUS.

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Description of Work Plan and Self-Reflection Process

In the spring of each year, all continuing faculty will return to the work plan that they assembled the previous year and complete a year-end self-reflection to accompany their new work plan and annual report. Faculty will also prepare a draft work plan for the following year and schedule a meeting with their AUS to review their documents and begin collaboration for the coming year.

In building a work plan draft, the faculty member will:

• Return to previous work plans and reflect on goals for the coming year.
• Explain how faculty member met goals or how they made progress towards last year’s goals. Provide a short self-reflection (format determined by AU).
• Discuss items that were not part of the original work plan but became major elements of faculty member’s work.
• Submit completed documents (using Watermark Faculty Success (WFS) or as directed by your AU) to your AUS and set the date in consultation for annual work plan review.

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Planning for Next Cycle’s Work Plan

For each area represented in a faculty member’s workload percentages, provide a description of the major goals/initiatives for the next academic year and what they hope to accomplish.

• Provide a means for self-reflection/self-evaluation.
• How will a faculty member know if they were successful in meeting goals? What evidence of success will they use?
• Next year’s work plan should be discussed and completed with the AUS during the annual review meeting as determined by director.

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Final AUS Evaluation

Following review of the faculty member’s work plan, the AUS will prepare a final evaluation based on the work plan, the faculty member’s annual report, self-examination, student course evaluations, any classroom observations that may have taken place, and any additional pertinent information (again, using WFS or as directed by AU). The AUS will use this information to provide an assessment, make recommendations for future goals, and to offer a final recommendation for resource/salary increases to the dean.

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Revision of Faculty Workload Plans

During the academic year, circumstances may arise that justify modifications to a faculty member’s workload plan. For example, a faculty member may be awarded an externally funded grant or contract mid-year that persuades the AUS to change the individual’s teaching workload, (the annual report would need to be amended to reflect this change).

Once the workload and statement of expected outcomes is revised at that time, all changes are subject to approval of the AUS and the dean. During faculty annual reviews, the AUS is expected to acknowledge circumstances when the dynamic nature of faculty workload necessitated changes to the faculty member’s predicted workload and workload plan, and to consider these factors appropriately in faculty performance evaluations.

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