Workload Calculation

Calculation of Faculty Workload Full details of the Faculty Employment Classifications can be found in the SMU Faculty Handbook: https://www.samuelmerritt.edu/faculty/handbooks I encourage you to review the faculty orientation module on Faculty Employment Classifications before delving into this module on calculation of workload. You will need to understand the difference among those classifications, in order for the workload calculation to make sense. Full details of this policy are found in the Faculty Handbook.

Basic Principle of Workload Sample Workload Calculation Course Course Type Rotations Enrollment Sections Course Instructional Hours Per Week Total Course Instructional Hours Per Week (Sections Course Instructional Hours Per Week) Instructional Hours Per Semester (Total Instructional Hours per week*16 weeks. 15 for Summer Courses) Instructional Hours per year (Clinical Rotations) Total Instructional Hours (Instructional Hours per Semester + Clinical Rotations) Prep Hours Total Hours Allocated Instructional/ Contact Hours Unallocated Instructional/Contact Hours NURSG-626 A   28 1 3 48 96 144 NURSG-628 E2 26 2 6 192 288 NURSG-631 32 64 NURSG-658L E 78 156 234 213 21 Workload at SMU is based on contact hours rather than the more traditional method of counting credit hours or number of courses taught over the course of a semester or year. When we say contact hours, we are talking about the actual number of 50-minute teaching sessions required to teach one student the necessary curriculum (including clinical) that would prepare him or her to graduate. Then we take that number and multiply it times the number of enrolled students. You can imagine that the number of contact hours for each program is in the thousands. A taxonomy of all courses throughout the division is managed by the Office of Institutional Research to monitor proper use and classification of course hours. The importance of this will be evident on the next slide.

Determined by Department The Calculation Instructional Hour / FTE Table:   Regular 9 Month Regular 12 Month Annual 12 Month Teaching hours 360 440 N/A Preparation hours 720 880 Total instruction hours 1080 1320 1722 Scholarship/service 453 552 Determined by Department Total hours toward 2080 = 1 FTE 1533 1872 Depending on your employment classification, regular, practice or annual, you, as a FT employee will be required to provide a predetermined number of total instructional hours annually, which you can see on this table. 1080 for a 9-month appointment; 1320 for 12-month and 1722 for Annual. Given what I described about the course taxonomy in the previous slide, we can divide the total hours required to teach a cohort of students for the entire program and then divide by the appropriate number of required teaching hours for each individual faculty which will yield an “allowable” FTE faculty for the program, that is the actual number of faculty required to teach all students from start to finish.

More About the Calculation   Regular 9 Month Regular 12 Month Annual 12 Month Teaching hours 360 440 N/A Preparation hours 720 880 Total instruction hours 1080 1320 1722 Scholarship/service 453 552 Determined by Department Total hours toward 2080 = 1 FTE 1533 1872 As you likely suspect, workload is built on an annual workload of 2080 hours, as defined in federal law. Now take a look at the table again. Note on the Regular 12-month column, the number of required instructional hours for each faculty member is 1320. (BTW: These teaching assignments will appear on your FIA or Faculty Instructional Assignment, in detail). Note how we got that number; 440 hours of actual teaching time and 880 hours for course preparation, a ratio of 1:2; that is, for every one hour of teaching, you get two hours of preparation, in most cases. Note also on the table that for the 12-month employee, there are a total of 552 hours reserved for scholarship and service, divided roughly equally. These hours will not appear on your FIA, that document houses only, instructional hours. You should note also that if we add, teaching, scholarship and service houirs, that equals 1872 contact hours. When you add 5 weeks of vacation, the total approximates 2080 committed hours.   If you have further questions, contact your manager.

Workload Calculation