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Workload Guidelines for Tenure-Line Faculty
Note: These guidelines take effect in AY25-26 and will be referenced as assignments for that academic year are made. The guidelines in effect for the college during the AY24-25 can be found here on the Office of Faculty Affairs webpage.
Workload Guidelines for Tenure-Line Faculty
Purpose
Tenured or tenure-track faculty members in the College of Health and Human Development (HHD) contribute in many different ways to the mission of the college and University. Balancing responsibilities over diverse disciplines can result in different combinations of teaching, research, and service. However, tenured and tenure-track faculty contributions to teaching is vital. We embrace the diversity of career emphases pursued by HHD faculty members, but we also recognize the need to maintain equitable expectations within and between our academic units with respect to teaching. Academic units are expected to adhere to these college guidelines, develop accessible unit-specific guidelines providing further implementation detail, and communicate work assignments for the upcoming year in advance to faculty members in writing.
Definitions
In this guideline, the term ‘college’ refers to the College of Health and Human Development, the term “academic unit” refers to a department or school within the college, the term ‘academic unit head’ refers to a department head or school director, and the term ‘faculty member’ refers to faculty members on tenure lines (pre-tenured or tenured).
Details
- Faculty members with a productive line of research are expected to teach 12 credits per academic year with teaching assignments made by the academic unit head and communicated to faculty members in writing. Differences in load are determined by the academic unit head based on factors that may include, but are not limited to: whether a course is team-taught (with consideration given to the number, and roles, of participating instructors), the number of different new course preparations in a given semester, class sizes, availability of teaching assistance, and time demands inherent in certain types of classes (e.g., writing-intensive courses; laboratory courses, courses with other experiential learning components, etc.). A variety of instruction modes of courses can meet this requirement.
- Faculty members who are not engaged in a productive line of research or scholarship will be expected to teach a 15 to 18 credit load, to be determined by the academic unit head.
- Faculty members may buy out of teaching with effort on funded research in accordance with the college’s guidelines on Allocating Research Effort/Salary Release/Summer Salary. While academic unit heads are generally expected to honor buyout requests that comply with college and academic unit guidelines, the decision about which courses are reassigned and which are taught by the faculty member is the prerogative of the academic unit head, and, even when requests comply with the guidelines, buyout requests for a particular term can still be denied under exceptional circumstances. Academic units are expected to document and make accessible local implementation guidelines for tenure line faculty to follow in order to request buyouts.
- Academic units may provide a release from teaching assignments for newly arriving faculty members during their transition to Penn State, for faculty members during pivotal points in their pre-tenure period, and for faculty members engaging in high-impact and highly-time-intensive instructional, administrative, service, undergraduate and graduate student advising, or research activities. Academic units are expected to document and make available local guidelines, consistent with the principals in these college guidelines, around the implementation of releases from teaching assignments. However, the decision about which courses are reassigned and which are taught by the faculty member is still the prerogative of the academic unit head and local academic unit implementation guidelines can include a provision allowing for additional discretionary reductions under exceptional circumstances.
- Faculty members, regardless of course buyouts and course releases must teach at least three credits each academic year.
- Engagement in other educational activities (such as supervising independent study courses, supervising student research, supporting experiential learning opportunities, and providing mentorship of students around academic and co-curricular planning) is an important part of the faculty role and is expected in addition to the normal teaching load. However, as noted in #4 above, academic units can provide releases from teaching assignments when these other activities are determined to be high-impact and highly-time-intensive.
- If a faculty member is on sabbatical or leave during one semester of an academic year, he or she will be expected to have a normal teaching load in the other semester, subject to buy-out policies and the requirement (see #2 above) that faculty teach at least one course per year.
- If a course does not attract the minimum number of students as stipulated by University policy on under-enrolled courses, the course may be cancelled and will not count toward teaching load. If the course is cancelled too late to assign the faculty member a different course that term, the faculty member may be asked by the academic unit head to develop a plan to teach an additional course in a subsequent term. Courses that do not enroll the University minimum number of students may, however, still may be offered and count toward teaching load, if offering the course is determined by the academic unit head to be necessary to meet critical educational needs of students or the academic unit. If the preceding conditions are not met and a faculty member still has strong interest in teaching such a course, the course will not count toward teaching load but may be considered as contributing to service or outreach responsibilities if the academic unit head assesses that to be appropriate.
- Faculty members can teach courses outside of academic programs based in their home academic unit. Assignments negotiated by the home academic unit head with the college for courses taught in any academic programs based at the college-level will count toward load. For jointly-appointed faculty members, assignments negotiated by the home academic unit head with the academic unit head of the other unit will count toward load. A faculty member can also teach a course in an academic program based outside their home academic unit on load if the academic unit head determines that the course assignment supports an educational program congruent with the educational mission of the academic unit or college and the faculty member is not needed to teach a course in an academic program based in the home academic unit that term. If the preceding conditions are not met and a faculty member still has strong interest in teaching such a course, the course will not count toward teaching load but may be considered as contributing to service or outreach responsibilities if the academic unit head assesses that to be appropriate.
- Faculty members are expected to be involved in service activities. These may include service to the academic unit, college, and/or University, as well as service to the faculty member’s profession and service to society. Academic unit service assignments are made annually by the academic unit head, consistent with these guidelines and local academic unit guidelines.
- Faculty members are expected to engage in professional development activities that keep them abreast of developments in pedagogy as well as their individual fields.