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[uconnclasdean]

I would be grateful for any references (for example, links) to "official" teaching load policies, either at the level
of department or college, coming from a college of arts and sciences in a public research university.

Having some models will help us write one.

Thanks -

[sirkdn]

If a public institution is unionized, the contract (w/ loads) may be a matter of public record. 

In our college of science (at a public univ in the South-east US), the load is spelled out in our faculty manual - but is not on-line, so would be "un-linkable."

We are in the process of codifying activities outside of "class contact hours" to calculate load (thesis committees, u'grad mentoring, etc) ... part of a process to bring our load from a 4+4 to a 3+3.

[derosa]

Private, L/A, university here...standard load is 4 courses each semester. However, the school of A&S has a few ways to reduce that load at the discretion of the dean.  The desire is to institute a 3/4 or 3/3.  The standard 4/4 is made "official" by way of our contracts.

[islandprof]

I work at a large, public, doctoral institution - I've been curious about this same issue so did a bit of poking around online just now. I think the answer can probably be found on a public web page somewhere, but my quick search did not lead to it.

And I'm not quite sure how meaningful that number would be, to be honest. I have been told by a dept chair that the standard for full-time, tenure-track faculty at my institution is the equivalent of six courses per year - and that for those who are "actively involved in research," the research activity counts as the equivalent of three courses.

And when I review the list of teaching assignments, I seem to see more people with two courses/yr than three. I know that some of these people are "buying out," but the whole thing seems very vague. I've been trying to stick pretty tightly to the three/yr model with the assignments I make.

[islandprof]

I realized I had one thing wrong in my earlier post - standard load is defined as equivalent of 6 courses/SEMESTER, not year. And I do know of one institution in our system where faculty members are often assigned 5 classes/semester. I've never heard of anyone actually getting six in a semester. Would be ridiculous, frankly. But the party line in our case is 3/yr for those actively involved in research, without a strict definition of what this means. Or even loose definition, really.