REG 05.20.37 – Faculty Workload

Authority: Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

History: First Issued: January 23, 2014. Last Revised: June 25, 2024.

Additional References:
NCSU POL 05.20.01 Appointment, Reappointment, Promotion and Permanent Tenure
NCSU REG 05.58.01 Additional Compensation
NCSU REG 05.20.34 Professional Faculty Ranks and Appointments
NCSU REG 05.20.24 Scholarly Reassignment for Faculty

Contact: Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Excellence (919-513-7741)

1. PURPOSE

The Board of Governors has an obligation to ensure that the constituent institutions are deploying and monitoring faculty workloads in a consistent, efficient, and effective manner across the UNC System. The Board of Governors requires all campuses to adopt a standard methodology for collecting data on faculty workload in order to ensure meaningful comparisons of faculty workload over time and across peers. The purpose of this regulation is to define how North Carolina State University (NC State) will implement the Board of Governors’ policy in order to monitor faculty workloads and put in place processes for approving significant variations from expected minimum loads.

2. DEFINITIONS

2.1. “Academic unit” means academic department, professional school, or an equivalent constituent unit of the NC State.

2.1. “Faculty” means employees of NC State appointed to carry out responsibilities such as instruction, research/creative activity, service, clinical care, or extension. Faculty may be tenured or not and temporary or permanent, with titles, ranks, and duties defined by the university.

2.3. “Full Time Equivalent (FTE)” means a workload that represents a full-time effort at a given institution in keeping with the institution’s faculty workload policy.

2.4. “Routinely expected duties” means those faculty responsibilities, as defined by NC State and in accordance with Section III. A of UNC Policy 400.3.4, which are ordinarily expected of faculty members, and which ordinarily include components of research. extension, and service.

2.8. Teaching Workload: the portion of the faculty workload spent on direct instruction and instructional activities.

2.9 Course Overload: a workload assignment that exceeds the expected teaching load for the discipline/department or the teaching load defined in the faculty member’s Statement of Faculty Responsibilities; faculty may receive additional pay or alternative compensation (such as a subsequent course reduction) for overload assignments.

2.10 Course Reduction: a reduction in the faculty member’s normal instructional load to allow time for work on non-instructional activities.

2.11 Statement of Faculty Responsibilities: a written description of the appropriate mix of the individual faculty member’s realms of responsibility and the mutually agreed-upon expectations from both the faculty member and the department during the faculty member’s appointment as addressed in REG 05.20.27 – Statements of Faculty Responsibilities. At NC State, a faculty member’s Statement of Faculty Responsibilities (SFR) constitutes a workload plan as defined by the UNC System.

3. WORKLOAD ASSIGNMENTS

3.1. The duties that commonly constitute a faculty member’s workload fall under the realms of faculty responsibility defined in NCSU REG 05.20.27 3.2. The Board of Governors’ UNC POL 400.3.4 does not prescribe teaching workloads for individual faculty members. Faculty members holding additional responsibilities for research/creative activities, extension and engagement, technological and managerial innovation, and/or service as identified in their SFR should have their teaching workload adjusted on a commensurate basis. i3.3. Each department must: (1) establish ordinary percentages for faculty workload in the realms of faculty responsibility as defined in REG 05.20.27 for each academic unit and for each faculty appointment type which together constitute a typical full-time appointment in a manner consistent with the mission of the institution and the academic unit; and (2) identify with reasonable particularity guidelines under which deviations in the ordinary percentages for a given academic unit may be approved. The Dean of each college, in consultation with the department heads/chairs/directors within the College, will establish criteria for expected workload for the departments and schools in the college, including justifications for overloads and course reductions. Department and school teaching workload expectations may vary in relation to major responsibilities and overall assignment of duties, disciplinary standards, class sizes, student credit hours, faculty contact hours, and accreditation requirements. The Provost must approve college or department workload expectations which vary significantly from expected college minimum loads.

3.2. The workload for individual faculty members may vary consistent with department or college guidelines set out per section 3.3 above depending on the nature of the faculty member’s appointment: e.g., responsibilities in teaching, research, extension/engagement, service and other responsibilities as set out in the Statement of Faculty Responsibilities. Faculty workload may also reflect the faculty member’s appointment type (tenure-track/professional or research/teaching/extension tracks) as well as level of performance in teaching and other responsibilities.

3.3 UNC POL 400.3.4 states that differential teaching loads may be authorized in recognition of differing individual circumstances including student success considerations, course level (bachelors, master’s, doctoral), course pedagogies, programmatic accreditation requirements, team-taught courses, research productivity, time bought out by external grants, significant administrative or service assignments, significant advising responsibilities, or other activities aligned with the institution’s mission and/or critical to student success as provided for in this policy and identified in the faculty member’s annual work plan.

3.4 The department head of each department or director of each school is responsible for defining individual workload assignments annually in consultation with the faculty member for each member of the faculty consistent with university, college and department guidelines. The SFR (work plan) shall identify the outputs and efforts a faculty member is expected to complete in the next academic year, recognizing that those items may be part of long-term or multi-year initiatives. The goals of the work plan should build towards and align with the expectations of the next summative/comprehensive review that a faculty member undergoes (e.g., reappointment, promotion, tenure, post-tenure review). The SFR (work plan) shall include expectations for teaching, research/creative activity, extension and engagement, technological and managerial innovation, and service via percentage time allocations that equate to a typical full-time appointment. These expectations must be incorporated into each faculty member’s Statement of Faculty Responsibilities. The Dean must approve individual teaching assignments that vary significantly from expected department and college minimum loads.

3.5. For faculty holding a joint or interdisciplinary appointment, the administrator of the faculty member’s primary academic department, in consultation with the administrator(s) of the departments to which the faculty member is jointly appointed or the interdisciplinary programs to which they are assigned, will define the workload expectations.

3.6 As required by the Board of Governors in its Academic Integrity Guidelines (UNC POL 700.6.1[R]), NC State must develop guidelines for the number of undergraduate independent studies a faculty member may teach per term. The Provost has determined that a faculty member may teach no more than three (3) undergraduate independent studies for courses regularly available through classroom or distance education in a semester or summer session without written approval from dean (not designee).

4. FACULTY WORKLOAD ANNUAL REVIEWS

4.1 Faculty workload annual reviews shall be incorporated into Annual Reviews of Faculty as outlined in REG 05.20.03.

4.2. Faculty members will include their workload responsibilities in their annual Faculty Activity Reports, and the department head’s annual performance review of faculty members shall be based upon that year’s assigned duties.

4.3 Each faculty member shall engage in an annual workload review with their department head or designee as defined in REG 05.20.03. As part of that annual workload review, the department chair/head shall review the work of the faculty member relative to their approved SFR (work plan).

4.4 Consistent with requirements set out in UNC System Policy 400.3.4, a faculty member who does not adequately satisfy their workload expectations for the review period shall be subject to a faculty success plan as defined in REG 05.20.03.

5. REPORTING ON FACULTY WORKLOAD

5.1 Overview and Timing. Per UNC System Policy 400.3.4, an annual report of the previous year’s faculty activity will be presented to and approved by the board of trustees each year. The report shall cover an academic/fiscal year basis (July 1 – June 30) and must be approved by the board of trustees no later than September 30 each year, with a copy submitted to the UNC System President by October 15.

5.2 Requirements. The annual report shall include quantitative information on faculty workload such as organized course sections taught, student credit hours produced, faculty contact hours, measures of research/creative activity, and service rendered in the previous academic year. The annual report shall include an analysis of faculty FTE allocations by realms of responsibility at the department, school/college, and institutional level. The annual report shall also include information regarding the process by which the institution implemented the provisions of their policy and evaluated individual faculty workloads relative to the standards therein.

6. Training

Pursuant to REG 05.20.27, development of the faculty SFR (work plan) will involve close communication between the faculty member and their department head(s). The Provost’s Office shall provide training to the academic community (faculty/department heads/other academic officers) which includes the process for developing and reviewing faculty SFR (work plans).

7. Other Matters

Periodic Review. UNC System Policy 400.3.4 required that each institution shall review their institutional policy at least every five years and submit a copy of that review and any changes made to the president. During the first 4 years of the implementation of substantive revisions to this regulation (REG 05.20.37), the Provost’s Office and the NC State Faculty Senate shall jointly conduct process reviews of this regulation and suggest revisions to improve implementation.