The Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) is rolling out changes for public universities across the state. One new policy addresses instructional workloads for full-time faculty. The larger objective of R-485 is to “improve efficiency while at the same time maintaining and advancing educational quality.” The policy itself is not alarming, but how it is being implemented in certain academic units at the University of Utah is.
Research faculty (tenured and tenure-line) will not be affected, according to campus leadership, but there will be an increase in the “baseline workload” for career-line faculty (full-time instructional faculty). Changes are to ensure that workloads are “equitably distributed” and “that all faculty members contribute their fair share.” The problem is that many career-line faculty at the U already contribute their fair share — and then some.
As a career-line faculty member in the Philosophy Department, I typically teach a 3/3 course load. Because of my department’s needs and my areas of expertise, I rarely teach introductory courses or multiple sections of the same class. Historically, this has meant preparing three distinct courses each semester. Most courses I teach are labor- and prep-intensive, as they are more technical than the average philosophy class and often require additional time working with students outside scheduled class meetings and office hours. At my current workload, I work at least 40 hours a week when classes are in session — often more…