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[yuri2]

Hi,

I'm at a R1 where research is expected.

My chair is one who likes to form committees on tough decisions that report to him
and he then makes the decision. This also allows him to say, "Hey, I'm just following
what the committee told me": it's a clever idea unless your on a committee as I am now!

The committee is tasked with: how do other R1 institutions handle research inactive faculty
with regard to their teaching load. This means how much more teaching do they do than
a research active faculty and what is the motivation/reasoning that is used to convince Deans
and the faculty member for the increase in teaching.

Some background. a: Currently, all faculty in our dept. teach the same load regardless of Ph.D. students
and funding (unless you buyout), b: Research inactive means people who have no grants as PI for
the last 5-10 years, and minimal research output post-grad supervision. I'm not talking about people who
are going through a slow period.

[systeme_d_]

Is there a question somewhere in your post?  I will assume that you actually do want to know what other universities do with research-inactive faculty and teaching loads.

At my place, if we don't produce scholarship (or if we plan to take a break from it for some serious personal reason) our courseload goes up. 

My department is 3/2, and our courseload becomes 3/3 or even 3/4 if we are not actively publishing.  Each department has its own guidelines.  For example, a cognate department is 2/2 and their research-inactive load is 3/3.  The problem is, of course, defining what research-productive is.  We defined it in terms that made sense for our discipline, and it was approved by the entire department, so now it is policy.

[ucprof]

I'm at the UC and I wish we had a bit more of this.   That said, I think we have a pretty reasonable system - it starts with a relatively high load but lots of options for reducing the load - including graduating PhD students, organizing seminars, teaching larger classes, buying out on grants, and other things as well.  There are formulas for all of this.  At least it beats how things were done at my last job at a private school.  There everyone taught a specific load and it was harder to buy out. At one point in the UC job they tried to cramp down on buying out by making it more expensive at which point we had to show the Dean the economics and the fact that he was already making money on the buyout.  So it went back to the old way.  I like that things like graduating PhD students counts at some level towards teaching because I believe that training PhDs in research is an important part of the degree and should be viewed as such.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

Deans shouldn't require convincing when teaching loads increase, they're usually the ones pushing for it.

Faculty at good research departments were hired for their research abilities, and when their productivity decreases the right response for a department is to first do everything in its power to increase that productivity: pay for workshop and conference travel, encourage collaboration with junior colleagues in hotter areas, and so on.  Higher loads should only kick in when all else fails, since turning a highly-paid tenured faculty member into what is essentially a casual hire is a bad use of resources, and will pretty much eliminate any chance for any future return in productivity. - DvF

[ursula]

Our deans have the right to try and impose heavier teaching loads on non-researchers, but the union has the right to grieve the decision if the faculty member disagrees with the load to be assigned.  Even though there's no guarantee the grievance would be won (such as in the case of the guy who hasn't published a word in fifteen years), few of our deans have had the nerve to try it.

[yuri2]

I'm at the UC and I wish we had a bit more of this.   That said, I think we have a pretty reasonable system - it starts with a relatively high load but lots of options for reducing the load - including graduating PhD students, organizing seminars, teaching larger classes, buying out on grants, and other things as well.  There are formulas for all of this. 

Thanks. Are you saying there are U.C. wide formulas? Or are you just saying they used by some departments. The problem with putting together a formula is that with 40+ faculty getting agreement would be tough.

In fact I was hoping to steer clear of the the whole formula business (unless they already are part of the
university bylaws) and suggest a binary classification. The problem with formulas is that it will favor
some just based on their research style for example experimentalists will always need more students than theorists because they build things.

[ucprof]

Our formulas are just within the department.  Every department is different.

[untenured]

To avoid the inevitable fallout from your proposals, you might want to simply pass along to your Chair what peer schools do.  That way, like your Chair, you are simply passing established information from another source.  Pass the hot potato out of your hands.

Standard research active load is 2/2.  If a tenured faculty drops off the research radar, he or she is eventually bumped up to a 3/3.  I wonder if the trade-off measures equivalent effort.

Inactive research faculty get more service, but only if they are not socially inept or incapable of completing a task.  Strange how that works.

[zharkov]

One approach that I've heard some schools do is allow tenured (?) people to choose a less research intensive track, and thus teach more.  (Perhaps per untenured's example of 2/2 vs. 3/3.)  So rather than pushing someone into more teaching, it is something that an individual has (at least some) choice over.

[msparticularity]

A lot of places (including our entire state system) define faculty teaching load as "equivalent to 12 credits per semester" with reductions negotiated individually based upon service commitments and research load. Expectations for what reasonable research productivity looks like--and also how advisement loads are calculated--are defined by the individual departments and colleges. It seems to me that defining the load in that way and negotiating downward based upon actual contributions makes for an easier starting point that arguing that a 2/2 load (or 6 credits per semester) is the norm and having to justify going upward from there.

[yuri2]

Thanks. I like the idea of faculty being allowed to give up the pretense of doing research in exchange for a higher teaching load. The problem with the reduction-based approach some of you mentioned is that it is too easy to game and it inherently favors fields which require lots of money/students.

On a different note, how do you "sell" the above to the faculty and in particular to the faculty who are being asked to teach more. Our department is functional without being super-collegial so I would not want it to sink even further.

[zharkov]

On a different note, how do you "sell" the above to the faculty and in particular to the faculty who are being asked to teach more. Our department is functional without being super-collegial so I would not want it to sink even further.

That sounds like something that the chair needs to deal with. 

[slpprof]

It's always great when you can get a win-win. If raises (hey, what are those? But I digress) are tied to meeting expectations and very little research is being output, the faculty member can never meet expectations, hence never gets a raise. I was able to increase the teaching load of a faculty member in such a situation to allow him to meet expectations, and everyone was happy (well, happier). It hurts morale when people are aware of a faculty member who gets the same research release as they do but doesn't have anything to show for it for years on end. And it sure as heck hurts the morale of the guy who never gets raises. So dealing with this can really lift a cloud.

[shrek]

Under our new, improved system research active have a 2/2 (and they buy out from that); and research inactive faculty have a 3/3. It's not a perfect system because it doesn't really look at student load, grants and so on which it should. It relies more on a judgement of productivity over the last 5 years. Which is fine, but probably not enough.

[offthemarket]

Original poster, is your question to the forum to collect data?  It varies widely.  I'd call up the chairs of comparison institutions and ask about the base teaching load (non-buyout) of the most and least productive members of the department in terms of research output.

Then report this to your chair.

I also wish there was more of this too.  At my institution you can't increase the load for those who don't do research, but there are resources to reduce the loads of the research-active faculty.  But it doesn't happen so easily.