1. Purpose and scope

   The purpose of this policy is to comply with standards for instructional workloads for faculty as described in .

   This policy establishes a comprehensive framework for assigning and managing faculty workloads at Ohio university. The policy applies to all faculty types across all colleges and campuses of Ohio university. It sets clear expectations for teaching, research/ scholarship/ creative activity (RSCA), service, and administration workloads in compliance with the Revised Code and Ohio university standards.

   This policy supersedes any conflicting departmental or college guidelines and is not subject to collective bargaining negotiation. It will be reviewed and updated at least once every five years, with approval by the board of trustees, and will be publicly accessible as required by law. 

   All workload assignments must be free from political or ideological considerations in accordance with section 3345.0217 of the Revised Code .

   The intent of this policy is not to require the same level and type of activity of every faculty member but to recognize that differentiation of roles is necessary to allow departments/schools, colleges, or equivalent academic units to carry out their mission.

2. Definitions

   1. Faculty: Faculty refers to all persons holding faculty appointments with faculty rank and faculty status.
   2. Credit hour: as defined in 34 C.F.R. 600.2, a credit hour reflects an amount of work represented in intended learning outcomes and verified by evidence of student achievement. This policy uses credit hours as the standard unit for measuring all faculty workload elements, including teaching and equivalents for RSCA, service, administration, and other duties.
   3. Full-time workload (nine-month): The full-time faculty workload is defined as thirty credit hours per academic year (two semesters). This represents a baseline one hundred per cent workload dedicated entirely to teaching (with no RSCA or service duties). All full-time faculty workload allocations for teaching, RSCA, service, administration and other duties are proportional to this thirty-credit baseline.
   4. Teaching, RSCA, service (TRS) ratio: The percentage breakdown of a faculty member's effort across teaching, RSCA, and service. For example, a TRS of sixty-thirty-ten indicates sixty per cent teaching, thirty per cent RSCA, ten per cent service. All TRS allocations refer to portions of the thirty-credit full-time workload standard.
   5. Justifiable credit hour equivalences: All components of workload must be translated into credit hour equivalencies to facilitate fairness and compliance. RSCA, as well as service and administrative duties, are assigned credit-hour values as justifiable credit-hour equivalencies (CHE) that count toward the thirty-credit full-time load.
   6. Annual assignment and review: Each faculty member's workload distribution is initially set in the letter of offer or appointment and reviewed (and revised, when appropriate) annually as part of the annual performance evaluation process.
   7. Workload equity and flexibility: While this policy provides standard expectations, it allows flexibility to accommodate individual strengths, varying disciplines, and evolving responsibilities. Department chairs, school directors, or equivalent academic unit leaders may recommend, with dean approval, adjusted allocations (different TRS ratios) for individual faculty to support greater emphasis on teaching, RSCA, service, or administration, as long as the unit meets its overall instructional obligations. Any such differential assignments must be documented and aligned with the unit's mission and needs.

3. Distribution of effort

   Teaching, RSCA, and service, each broadly defined, constitute the three major areas of faculty responsibility. The educational responsibility of faculty includes more than the hours directly spent in classroom instruction and scholarship. Other factors to be considered include class preparation; grading and other forms of evaluation of students' work; thesis and dissertation direction; academic advising of students; laboratory, studio, or practicum requirements; size of classes; availability and use of teaching assistants. Service includes assistance to the public and the profession and the community in the form of professional activities external to the university. RSCA includes a variety of professional, research, scholarly, and creative activities. At its best, these three dimensions of faculty effort are mutually reinforcing.

   Adjustments to baseline teaching loads must be based on justifiable credit hour equivalencies (CHE) important to fulfilling the educational mission of the university. Justifiable CHE may include (but are not limited to) teaching unusually large class sections or classes with an unusually large number of contact hours relative to credit hours; effective use of high-impact teaching practices, teaching innovations, or time-intensive instructional pedagogies; unusually high number of different course preparations or significant curriculum/course development; direction of special studies, community engaged research, experiential learning, or undergraduate/graduate research; active RSCA programs with significant outcomes; significant, documented investments in RSCA development; and meaningful service assignments/expectations, professional development activities, or administrative duties.

   Annual TRS workload assignments and corresponding performance expectations must be defined using a combination of instructional credit hours and justifiable credit hour equivalents (CHE) using full-time workload as the baseline.

   Quantitative standards for teaching, RSCA, and service/administration may be weighted for individual faculty upon recommendation of chairs and directors and approval by the dean to reflect the particular strengths/interests of faculty and department/school needs. For example, a faculty member may have a higher percentage of effort directed toward teaching, with a corresponding decrease in RSCA and service expectations. Faculty with major RSCA commitments may negotiate reductions in the other areas of faculty responsibility in order to devote more effort to RSCA.

4. College and departmental responsibility for policies

   Each college, or equivalent unit having permanent faculty, shall develop a policy on faculty workload that will allow for differentiation of mission for departments and schools within the college and for faculty within the departments and schools. The college policy should allow for flexibility and for ranges in teaching, RSCA, and service/administration expectations. The college document shall be developed in consultation with chairs/directors or a faculty advisory committee and be subject to approval by the provost.

   In line with the narrative criteria prescribed by the college guidelines, each department, school or equivalent unit will develop a workload policy that ensures that the department or school meets standards appropriate to its mission. Within the department or school there may be significant differences in the assignment of responsibilities to individual faculty members so long as the department or school is able to meet its responsibilities for instruction.

   Department and school policies are subject to approval by the college dean (or equivalent). In general, it is expected that the mission of the academic unit and level of programs offered will determine the relative balance of teaching to RSCA and service/administration. Typically, units with an associate degree or two-year programs will be expected to devote eighty to ninety per cent of effort to teaching. Programs with a baccalaureate program will devote seventy to eighty per cent of effort to teaching. Departments with an active master's program will be expected to devote sixty to seventy per cent departmental workload to teaching. Departments with active doctoral/terminal degree programs will be expected to devote fifty to sixty per cent of departmental workload to teaching. These percentages are applied as thresholds at the department or school level to ensure the department's appropriate balance of teaching relative to RSCA and service. 

5. Policy guidelines

   Each college, or equivalent unit having faculty, will develop faculty workload guidelines in line with the standards of this policy. These guidelines will reflect the fact that a well-articulated statement of faculty workload will allow individual faculty, the academic unit, and its college to understand how each contributes to the accomplishment of the university's mission.

   1. Tenure-track (probationary) and tenured faculty are expected to contribute to all three areas: teaching, RSCA, and service. The baseline TRS ratio for tenured/tenure-track faculty is eighty-ten--ten, with a maximum of twelve credit hours of instruction per semester (or twenty-four per year). Tenure-track/tenured faculty with more RSCA and/or service/administration expectations, based on justifiable credit-hour equivalencies (CHE), should have corresponding reductions to the baseline teaching workload.
   2. Instructional (non-tenure track) faculty focus on teaching and service (if applicable) and do not have RSCA as part of their workload. The baseline teaching load for instructional faculty with no service expectation (one hundred per cent teaching) is fifteen credit hours per semester (or thirty per year). Instructional faculty with service/administration and/or professional development/qualification expectations, based on justifiable as credit-hour equivalencies (CHE), should have corresponding reductions to the baseline teaching load.
   3. Clinical (non-tenure-track) faculty workload may include a combination of teaching, service, RSCA, and clinical practice or supervision. The baseline teaching load for clinical faculty with no RSCA or service expectation (one hundred per cent teaching) is fifteen credit hours per semester (or thirty per year). Clinical faculty with clinical practice, RSCA, service/administration, and/or professional development/qualification expectations, based on justifiable as credit-hour equivalencies (CHE), should have corresponding reductions to the baseline teaching load.
   4. Part-time faculty (instructors) should be assigned a proportional workload determined by the number of credit hours taught relative to the full thirty-credit hour annual load.
   5. Visiting faculty TRS workloads should be determined on a case-by-case basis referencing the above distinctions.

    

Forms, References, and History

1. Forms

   There are no forms that are specific to this policy. 

2. References

   The following items are relevant to this policy:

   None 

3. History

   Draft versions of this policy that were circulated for review, their cover memos, their forms, and Reviewers' comments on them are available on the password-protected Review site. 

   Prior versions of this policy were approved on:

   1. April 13, 2021 (re-formatted)
   2. June 25, 1994