Faculty Resources

LADDER-RANK FACULTY TEACHING WORKLOAD

Teaching Workload
Psychology's teaching load is four courses. Generally, faculty teach one grad course, one small undergrad course, and one large undergrad course (over 200 enrolled). The fourth class consists of individualized graduate and undergraduate instruction, as well as providing lectures in team-taught courses. During first year, released from teaching either the small undergraduate course or the graduate seminar.

Solutions for Grad Courses with Low Enrollment
1. Allow undergraduates to enroll in your graduate course. This is allowed and encouraged. The university does not differentiate between undergrads and grads in classes, only total headcount. Undergraduates must have a 3.0 overall GPA. 2. When possible, conjoin an undergraduate course with the graduate course (taught at same time/place), allowing undergraduates to enroll in the course. This has the benefit of increasing our Departmental undergraduate courses offered but it does not though increase the department or faculty Workload as each part only counts for 0.5 credit. This does not require much extra work; just a little extra work in the course approval. 3. Chair may allow a course below minimum enrollment to be taught when faculty member exceeds the Departmental Workload in other classes.

Untaught Course and PSYC 87 Policy
Current departmental workload policy states that faculty must make up any scheduled course (including grad courses) which is untaught for any reason whether that be low enrollment (most common), illness, etc. While this is the policy, it has not been rigorously enforced resulting in reduced faculty and department workload figures.

We propose to add a grace period of one year so that is is only after the second time a faculty member's class is untaught that they must make the course up. To ensure that the Departmental workload does not suffer during this grace period, the faculty member must teach a Freshman Seminar (PSYC 87) that year if possible (or the following quarter if the missed course was in Spring).

Thus, the first time a course is not taught, the faculty member must teach an 87 but they needn't make up the lost course. The second time that course is untaught, the faculty member must not only make up the lost course (either that year or the next) but they may no longer teach the twice failed course. The new replacement course must be approved by the Chair and the Undergrad/Grad Affairs Committee.

Undergraduate Courses with Low Enrollment that are still taught
When an undergraduate course does not meet minimum enrollment twice, even if taught, a new or revised course must be run by the Undergraduate Affairs Committee and Chair.

STUDENT AFFAIRS STAFF
STUDENT SERVICES OFFICE
1533 Mandler Hall
Phone: 858.534.3001
Fax: 858.534.2324