Teaching Responsibilities Policy

1. Teaching assignments are made by the department chair/program director consistent with the instructional needs of the unit and the College. Chairs and directors are encouraged to work with faculty to develop three-year plans.
   
   
2. Normally, full-time faculty in the College will devote at least 40% of their professional efforts to instruction. A full-time teaching responsibility for College faculty is four courses per academic year. Exceptions to this rule include faculty in Bioinformatics, Chemistry, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Molecular Biosciences, and Physics & Astronomy where the teaching responsibility is two courses per academic year, and in Geology where the teaching responsibility is three courses per academic year. These classroom responsibilities are in addition to directed readings, independent studies, or direction of or participation in Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations.
   
   
3. Flexible use of the 40-40-20 formula should be considered to create work arrangements with individual faculty in keeping with their professional talents, changing situations, and needs of the College. Only tenured faculty members are eligible for redistribution of effort, and all such arrangements must be made in advance of the redistribution, in consultation with the department chair and approved by the Dean. Each request will be approved on a year-by-year basis.
   
   
4. Minimum class enrollments are 12 students in undergraduate courses and 6 students in graduate courses. If retained on a teaching schedule, courses enrolling fewer than the 12/6 minima are taught as an addition to the instructor’s regular responsibilities. If a faculty member’s share of a team-taught course is less than the 12/6 minimum, the course is considered an addition to the faculty member’s regular responsibilities and is taught as an overload. Any exceptions to this must be approved by the Dean’s Office.
   
   
5. Course “banking” is not permitted.
   
   
6. A combined course or a cross-listed course counts as only one course.
   
   
7. Faculty should rotate through appropriate freshman-sophomore and/or introductory courses at least once every two years. Specific assignments should be made so that the best-suited faculty are chosen to staff appropriate instructional levels.
   
   
8. Department chairs and their administrative staffs will follow these guidelines when determining course assignments, and will work with their Associate Dean when exceptions are requested.

Updated October 2006