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[balsamic]

Whenever I hear about an institution changing its course load for faculty, it is (fortunately) always going from a greater to a lesser one.  My first job was at a school that had gone from 3/3 to 3/2 in the 1990's.  My second job was at a school that did the same thing in the early 2000's (and that was a gradual change from it being at 4/4 in the 1970's and beforehand).

I'm curious if this shift has ever taken place in the other direction (from a lesser course load to a greater one) and how the administration has handled this with their faculty.

[prytania3]

I teach at a community college where we have a 12-credit load/semester. I teach 3 4-credit classes + an overload class for the dough. Many cc's have a 5/5 teaching load and we know we are lucky. Fortunately we have a union, so it would be hard for them to push through the 5/5 load, but I'm sure they would if they could.

[zharkov]

Naturally, it all depends on whether the faculty is represented.  Is so, you'll get an increase in load only if you are willing to give something in return, and maybe not even then.

If not, you'd better have an air-tight story about why you want to increase load.  One could be changing the school's mission, and no longer requiring research productivity for tenure and promotion, say.  Or is there was a financial issue, then you'd better combine an increase in load with more or less equal salary reductions for administrators, or some such equivalent and strong action.  Otherwise, you have zero credibility.

So, OP, why are you asking?

[balsamic]

Naturally, it all depends on whether the faculty is represented.  Is so, you'll get an increase in load only if you are willing to give something in return, and maybe not even then.

If not, you'd better have an air-tight story about why you want to increase load.  One could be changing the school's mission, and no longer requiring research productivity for tenure and promotion, say.  Or is there was a financial issue, then you'd better combine an increase in load with more or less equal salary reductions for administrators, or some such equivalent and strong action.  Otherwise, you have zero credibility.

So, OP, why are you asking?

I'm a faculty member, not an administrator, and I'm concerned that the admin may try to pull that on us here.  We are and have been at 2/2 for a long time, but who knows what could happen given these financial difficulties.

[zharkov]

Naturally, it all depends on whether the faculty is represented.  Is so, you'll get an increase in load only if you are willing to give something in return, and maybe not even then.

If not, you'd better have an air-tight story about why you want to increase load.  One could be changing the school's mission, and no longer requiring research productivity for tenure and promotion, say.  Or is there was a financial issue, then you'd better combine an increase in load with more or less equal salary reductions for administrators, or some such equivalent and strong action.  Otherwise, you have zero credibility.

So, OP, why are you asking?

I'm a faculty member, not an administrator, and I'm concerned that the admin may try to pull that on us here.  We are and have been at 2/2 for a long time, but who knows what could happen given these financial difficulties.

If there is a union, then you're probably in luck.  If not, then the faculty senate should be working on ways to deal with this eventuality.

[maybe]

At my CC, the course load has gradually gone up for all departments other than English.  It's gone from 4/4 to 4/5 to 5/5, and now they are trying to push English out of 4/4 (English has a lesser load because of how many Composition essays are read). 

It happens.  My guess is that in state Universities the administrations will be attempting to bump up loads. 

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[psychprof]

We've had an effective increase in teaching courseload for some faculty members as we have become more research oriented. When I came we were all on a 3-3; naturally, after I got tenured we voted to give all the tt people 2-2 until they got tenure. Now, it has moved for some folks from 3-3 to 3-2 or 2-2 depending on your research productivity. Likewise, for some folks who are not research productive, their teaching load has increased to 3-3 or even 4-4 for a few people who do no publication at all.

In our dept case the chair has made it a part of a larger review of the entire faculty's research productivity.