College-level guidelines intended to support school-level workload policies and annual workload agreements.

Purpose and guiding principles

These guidelines provide a common college framework for assigning and documenting faculty workload across the four AAD schools. The intent is to improve transparency, better capture overall productivity, and support more equitable distribution of service and other shared obligations, while preserving appropriate school-level flexibility. The framework is not intended to prescribe a single workload model for all disciplines or appointments. Rather, each school is responsible for developing a school-level workload policy or framework that aligns with these guidelines, maps local practices to the college categories, and reflects disciplinary norms, accreditation expectations, program needs, and individual faculty roles.

The college framework is designed to:

Scope and applicability

These guidelines apply to faculty with academic-year (AY) or calendar-year (CY) appointments in AAD, including tenured and tenure-track faculty; collegiate faculty; professors of practice; instructors; and Administrative and Professional faculty with instructional assignments. The principles also apply, as appropriate, to part-time appointments with proportional expectations documented in writing.

Each school policy should address workload assignment for the faculty categories present in that school and should state how workload is documented for each term and evaluated during annual review.

Policy alignment and authority

Virginia Tech policy assigns primary authority for academic responsibility assignments to the department head, chair, or school director. Assignments may vary by term and should involve consultation with the faculty member. For non-routine assignments that require extensive travel or unusual scheduling, consultation is required.

The Faculty Handbook uses the term didactic hour for teaching-load discussions. Schools are not required to use “didactic hour” as the primary terminology in their local workload frameworks if another model, such as credit hours, teaching units, or percentage-based assignments, is more transparent for faculty and appropriate to the discipline. However, each school policy should provide a clear method for translating local workload calculations into the college framework and, where applicable, into the Faculty Handbook’s didactic-hour concept. This translation is intended to support consistency, transparency, and comparability across the college, while allowing for school-level flexibility in describing or managing workload.

Key institutional references

Each school policy should cite the current Virginia Tech Faculty Handbook, including Chapter 9 (Instruction-Related Policies), as well as relevant university policies and procedures maintained at policies.vt.edu and by Faculty Affairs, the Registrar, and other central offices.

Typical workload categories

For workload planning and documentation, AAD uses the following distinct categories. School policies should use these categories or explicitly map local categories to them.

Teaching: Instructional activities (typically for credit) and direct student-support activities that are integral to instruction, such as course preparation, scheduled class meetings, assessment, grading, required office hours, and instructional supervision that is part of a course.

Research and creative scholarship: Research, scholarship, creative work, and related dissemination consistent with faculty appointment expectations and school criteria.

Service: Contributions to shared governance and the functioning of the school, college, university, profession, and community, including committee work and other service roles. Service may also include contributions to professional organizations. Service does not include formal administrative appointments and is generally separate from paid consultative engagements and work activities that are external to the Virginia Tech assignment (e.g., secondary employment engagements).

Administration: Formal, role-based managerial or leadership responsibilities (e.g., program chair, area coordinator, graduate director, director-level assignments). Administration is not to be conflated with service, and faculty with formalized administrative roles are generally also expected to contribute meaningfully to service.

Outreach and Engagement: Outreach and engagement refers to university-sponsored work that applies a faculty member’s expertise, teaching, research, creative activity, or professional practice in service to external communities, schools, organizations, publics, or partners. This category should be reserved for defined workload assignments with clear expectations, measurable deliverables, and an assigned percentage of effort, and it should be distinct from routine teaching, advising, recruitment, committee work, or general service. Examples may include formalized public-facing programs, community-based initiatives, externally engaged creative or scholarly projects, or approved educational programs when these activities are included in the faculty member’s workload plan. When applicable, outreach and engagement should be documented separately in the annual workload agreement and evaluated as part of the annual review process.

Credit hours as the common currency within AAD for instructional load

AAD uses student-registered credit hours as the common currency for describing instructional activity across the College. Credit hours are the unit recorded in the timetable and degree audits, the basis for student credit hour production, and therefore connect instruction directly to the university’s resource model. Because instructional formats vary in contact time, preparation, assessment, supervision, and production requirements, credit hours are not treated as a simple count of courses taught. Instead, credit hours establish the baseline from which school-level equivalencies are defined and applied consistently within each discipline.

For lecture-and seminar-based instruction, credit hours translate directly into load expectations: a standard three-credit lecture course functions as the baseline unit for workload planning and may be treated as the equivalent of one course in a conventional load pattern. For instructional formats that deviate from lecture delivery, AAD schools will publish an equivalency method that remains anchored to credit hours but recognizes when the instructional commitment is not captured by credit hours alone.

In studio-and design-lab curricula, students commonly register for higher-credit studios (often six to eight credits) that carry substantial contact hours, iterative critique, and intensive assessment. In workload accounting, these studios may reasonably be treated as the instructional equivalent of two three-credit lecture courses when the studio credit and associated contact time align with that level of instructional commitment. Similarly, laboratory, studio-lab, and production-based courses should be assigned credit-hour-based equivalents that account for required contact hours, supervision and safety responsibilities, and the intensive, continuous feedback inherent to these formats.

Applied and individualized instruction (e.g., private lessons) should be converted to credit-hour equivalents using a transparent, school-approved method that reflects how those credits are structured in the curriculum and the recurring weekly contact and assessment obligations they entail. Across all modalities, the guiding expectation is that credit hours remain the shared reference point linking teaching assignments to student progress and resource implications, while equivalency adjustments provide an equitable and discipline-appropriate translation of instructional effort into workload planning.

School-level policies may also define limited modifiers that adjust the credit-hour equivalency when documented conditions materially change the instructional burden, such as unusually large enrollments, multi-section coordination, courses with exceptional production or safety obligations, significant new course development, or intensive supervision embedded in credit-bearing instruction (e.g., capstones, practicum experiences). Any modifiers should be defined in advance, applied consistently, and documented in the semester workload agreement so that workload assignments remain transparent, auditable, and aligned with curricular integrity.

Didactic hour and teaching unit

Didactic hour: A didactic hour is a unit defined in the Virginia Tech Faculty Handbook for teaching-load discussions. The Faculty Handbook defines a didactic hour as one contact hour in a lecture course or .6 hour for each contact hour in a course designated as a laboratory course. Schools may use didactic hours, credit hours, teaching units, course equivalents, percentage-based assignments, or another transparent method to describe teaching workload in a manner appropriate to their disciplines. For instruction that does not fit neatly within the Faculty Handbook definition, including time-intensive lab-based courses, applied lessons, studios, ensembles, theatrical productions, individualized instruction, or other specialized formats, the school policy should explain how those activities are recognized and translated for workload planning.

Teaching unit: Schools may use teaching units as a local equivalency tool to address differences among instructional modalities and to connect school-level workload practices to the broader college framework. When used, teaching units should be defined clearly and applied consistently, with an explanation of how they relate to credit hours, didactic hours where applicable, course equivalents, or workload percentages. This approach allows schools to preserve discipline-specific flexibility while maintaining transparency, comparability, and alignment with university expectations.

Full-time equivalent (FTE) and workload percentages

School-level workload frameworks may begin with the faculty member’s expected contributions for the academic year and then map those contributions to the school and college workload categories. This approach is appropriate when it supports transparency, equity, and alignment with the faculty member’s appointment, rank, career stage, disciplinary expectations, and assigned responsibilities. Regardless of the local process used, the resulting workload agreement should identify the faculty member’s assigned responsibilities, express the distribution of effort across recognized workload categories, and provide a clear basis for annual evaluation.

A full workload is 100% for a semester. Each semester workload agreement should total 100% across categories. For AY appointments, schools should articulate how semester assignments relate to annual expectations (e.g., how fall and spring assignments together represent the academic-year appointment expectations). Imbalanced workload agreements are possible (e.g., 90% fall semester, 110% spring semester) to accommodate necessary circumstances but normally should not be the default assignment. Overloads shall be determined by considering the faculty member’s total assigned effort across the academic year, rather than by evaluating any single semester in isolation. Identified overloads may be addressed in accordance with individual school guidelines, including through compensation, an allocation of professional development funds, workload rebalancing, or other approved mechanisms.

Baseline AAD workload expectations (college-level departure points)

The following baseline expectations serve as common departure points for AAD. Each school should define its own baseline teaching expectations by faculty category and rank, and may modify these baseline percentages as appropriate for disciplinary norms and school needs. Any deviations from the school baseline for an individual faculty member should be documented in the annual workload agreement.

Tenured and tenure-track faculty

AAD workload distribution general departure point: 50% teaching, 40% research and creative scholarship, 10% service.

Teaching departure point: the equivalent of five 3-credit lecture-based courses per academic year (often structured as a 3:2 or 2:3 pattern). For workload accounting, this is commonly described as 15 didactic hours per academic year in AAD discussions.

Research and creative scholarship departure point: typically 40%. An assignment above 40% in this area should ordinarily be reserved for cases where the School Director (or Chair) has formally recognized a specialized research or creative project, a major funded initiative, or a defined grant-funded component that requires increased focus and deliverables within the relevant period. In such cases, the workload agreement should explicitly state the rationale, scope, expected outcomes, and duration of the elevated research and creative scholarship allocation.

Service departure point: Tenured and tenure-track faculty are expected to contribute meaningfully to the service mission of the school, the college, and the university, with a baseline service assignment of 10% (approximately four hours per week during the contract period). Allocations above 20% should generally be reserved for special assignments such as major curriculum overhaul undertaken at the request of the School Director, leading accreditation and self-study reports, or comparable time-intensive leadership work that extends beyond routine committee responsibilities. Conversely, when a faculty member has a minimal service assignment relative to unit norms, the workload distribution will generally be rebalanced through an increased teaching assignment, which may include additional course instruction, consistent with school staffing needs and the school’s teaching equivalency framework.

Research leave and special leave for research. When a faculty member is approved for a study-research leave or comparable research leave, the workload agreement for the leave period should reflect that the individual’s assigned duties are focused on research and creative scholarship. For planning and documentation purposes, this is commonly recorded as a fully research and creative scholarship-focused assignment for the approved leave period, with any conditions or exceptions stated in the leave approval documentation and reflected in the annual workload agreement.

Collegiate faculty and professors of practice

AAD workload distribution general departure point: 60% teaching, 30% research and creative scholarship, 10% service.

Teaching departure point: a 3:3 pattern (six lecture-based courses per academic year) or other school-defined equivalent.

Service departure point: Collegiate faculty and Professor of Practice line faculty are expected to contribute meaningfully to the service mission of the school, the college, and the university, with a baseline service assignment of 10% (approximately four hours per week during the contract period) within the typical workload distribution for these appointments. Service allocations will remain flexible and responsive to unit needs. Substantial service engagements and special assignments will carry a higher service designation and may require a reallocation of effort, including a reduced teaching expectation for the relevant term or academic year, consistent with the principle that assignments may vary by term and may be adjusted to permit time for other scholarly activities, outreach, and faculty development. Conversely, when a faculty member has a minimal service assignment relative to unit norms, the workload distribution will generally be rebalanced through an increased teaching assignment, which may include additional course instruction, consistent with school staffing needs and the school’s teaching equivalency framework.

Instructor-line faculty

AAD workload distribution general departure point: 80% teaching, 5–10% service, and up to 15% research and creative scholarship when appropriate for the position description.

Teaching departure point: a 4:4 pattern (eight courses per academic year) or other school-defined equivalent.

Service departure point: Instructor-line faculty will frequently have a service component as part of their position. However, given the teaching-centered nature of these appointments, service expectations may be limited and may not include substantive service obligations beyond those necessary to support instruction and program operations. The scope and designation of service for Instructor-line faculty are determined at the school level based on unit needs and the specific terms of the appointment, and the assigned service expectation (including any decision that service is minimal or not required in a given period) should be documented in the faculty member’s annual workload plan.

When either research and creative scholarship or service expectations are elevated, the teaching percentage should be reduced accordingly and documented in the annual workload plan. Although an Instructor-line appointment may not include a research and creative scholarship allocation, full-time faculty on renewable appointments are generally expected to contribute to the service mission of the unit and the university, and in most circumstances the service designation should not fall below 5% unless otherwise justified and approved at the school level and recorded in the workload plan.

Administrative designation

Faculty members who hold formalized administrative roles may be assigned a defined administration percentage as part of their workload distribution, separate from the service component and calibrated to the scope and complexity of the role (e.g., Academic Program Chair, Associate Director, Graduate Program Director, comparable school-level leadership assignments). The administration designation recognizes sustained program management, curriculum and assessment coordination, advising and scheduling oversight, personnel or budget-related responsibilities where applicable, and other ongoing operational duties that extend beyond routine committee service. When an administration percentage is assigned, the overall workload distribution should be adjusted accordingly (e.g., through a reduction in teaching and/or service) and documented in the annual workload plan for transparency and equity.

Outreach and Engagement designation

Some faculty members may have a formalized outreach and engagement component within their workload distribution. While this work can at times intersect with research and creative scholarship, the outreach and engagement category should be reserved for distinct, clearly defined assignments that most frequently involve university-sponsored instruction or administrative work within formalized programs (e.g., the Virginia Tech String Project or comparable institutional initiatives). When assigned, the outreach and engagement percentage should be documented annually in the workload plan and evaluated as part of the annual review process, and it should be reported thoroughly in the Faculty Activity Report each year as applicable, consistent with the university expectation that faculty report annually on teaching, research and scholarship or creative works, engagement, outreach, and service activities.

Administrative and Professional faculty with teaching

A/P faculty appointments vary substantially and include both administrative faculty and professional faculty. Administrative faculty, including academic leaders, generally have a substantive administrative assignment expressed as a defined percentage of effort and may also have assigned teaching, research and creative scholarship, and service expectations, depending on the position and unit needs. Professional faculty in specialized professional roles generally have workload assignments focused on administrative, advising, operational, or professional responsibilities; research and creative scholarship would not normally be expected, and teaching would typically occur only in special circumstances when appropriate to the appointment and approved through applicable university and unit processes. When A/P faculty have teaching assignments, the school policy should specify how teaching effort is quantified. All assigned percentages and expectations should be appropriate to the appointment, documented in the annual workload plan, and consistent with applicable university policy and approval practices, including those governing overload teaching.

School-level workload policies: guiding elements

Schools may use local terminology, tables, equivalency models, or framework language that best fits their disciplines, provided that the school policy clearly maps those local categories and calculations to the college-level workload categories of teaching, research and creative scholarship, service, administration, and outreach and engagement. To implement these college guidelines, each AAD school should adopt a school-level workload policy that includes the following elements.

AAD schools are also encouraged to develop supplemental language for the following elements.

College-level translation concept

Each school policy should include a transparent equivalency method that allows the school to assign an appropriate workload value to courses and other instructional responsibilities. Schools may use credit hours, didactic hours, teaching units, or a percentage-based model but should define the mapping and apply it consistently.

AAD default conversion for a 3-credit lecture-based course

AAD commonly uses a percentage-based planning convention in which a 3-credit lecture-based course is designated as 20% of a faculty member’s semester workload. When this convention is used, a single course corresponds to 10% of annual effort for an AY appointment (because the academic year comprises two primary semesters). Under this convention, five courses per academic year corresponds to 50% annual teaching effort; six courses correspond to 60%; seven courses correspond to 70%; and eight courses correspond to 80%.

Didactic-hour based equivalencies (required minimum content for school policies)

School policies should generally incorporate the Faculty Handbook definition of a didactic hour. The school policy should state how contact hours and course formats are translated into didactic hours (and optionally teaching units) for workload purposes. At a minimum and as applicable, the school policy should address lecture and seminar courses, laboratory and studio courses, applied instruction, ensemble or production assignments, supervision of independent study and thesis credits, and online or hybrid modalities if used.

School-level modifiers and adjustments

Each school policy should define objective modifiers that can raise or lower the workload value of a teaching assignment. These modifiers are required to support equity across different kinds of teaching and might include consideration of:

Graduate mentoring and advising (required designations)

Graduate student mentoring is a significant workload component in many AAD programs. Each school policy should define how graduate mentoring is recognized in workload assignments, including at least the following roles: major advisor or thesis/dissertation chair; committee member; graduate program coordination roles; and supervision of graduate teaching assistants when applicable.

Schools may express graduate mentoring credit as a percentage of workload or as teaching units. Schools should set clear caps and exceptions to prevent over-commitment and to support equitable distribution.

Service (required designations; hour-based transparency)

Each school policy should define service roles and assign them workload values. Service assignments should be distributed equitably within the unit, tracked over time, and revisited annually. To support transparency, the school policy should use an hour-based reference point for committee and service work, even if the school ultimately uses percent designations.

College reference point for service hours

A 10% service designation corresponds to an average of approximately 4 hours per week during the semester. Using a 17-week semester reference, which reflects the standard length of the academic semester including instructional and examination periods, a 10% service assignment corresponds to approximately 68 hours of service over the semester (4 hours × 17 weeks).

For an academic-year appointment, the same 10% service expectation across the fall and spring semesters corresponds to approximately 136 hours of service over the academic year (68 hours per semester × 2 semesters), excluding summer and winter sessions unless explicitly assigned.

Suggested Framework for School Service Tables

Schools are encouraged to develop service tables that articulate workload designations for service activities that are commonly assigned. These tables may include, but are not limited to, school-, college-, and university-level committee work; program-level responsibilities; recruitment and outreach efforts; accreditation-related service; faculty governance roles; and professional or disciplinary service. To promote transparency and shared understanding, schools are encouraged, when feasible, to indicate the assumed average weekly time commitment associated with each designation, as well as the corresponding total hours over the semester. Schools may also include additional categories, role-based distinctions, or incremental assignments that reflect the nature, scope, and expectations of service responsibilities within the discipline.

Administration (distinct from service)

When a faculty member holds a formal administrative appointment, the workload agreement should include an explicit administration percentage that is distinct from service. Each school policy should define common administrative roles in the school and assign typical workload ranges or standard percentages based on the scope of duties.

Administrative appointments may warrant reductions in teaching and or service, and the nature of the reduction should be documented in the semester workload agreement.

Outreach and engagement (distinct category when defined in workload)

AAD recognizes that some faculty hold defined outreach or engagement responsibilities that should be calculated separately from routine service and routine teaching. When outreach or engagement is a defined workload assignment, it should have explicit deliverables and an assigned percentage. Example: instruction within the Virginia Tech String Project may be designated as outreach when it is part of an approved workload plan and has defined outputs and time commitments.

Research and creative scholarship

Each school should define research and creative scholarship expectations for each appropriate faculty category and for different workload percentages. The school guidelines may include examples of expected outcomes for common research and creative scholarship allocations (e.g., 20 percent versus 40 percent), recognizing that appropriate outputs vary by discipline and rank.

Flexibility for elevated research or creative scholarship focus

School guidelines and policies should allow for increasing research and creative scholarship allocations when justified by grant activity, major creative projects, book or exhibition cycles, accreditation-linked research expectations, or other unit priorities. When research and creative scholarship allocations increase, teaching and or service allocations should be adjusted accordingly to maintain a sustainable total workload.

Annual workload agreements

Each faculty member should submit an annual workload agreement (or the school’s equivalent) that lists assignments across categories. The agreement should be reviewed and approved by the School Director or a designated administrator (e.g., Academic Program Chair). The agreement provides the authoritative record of the faculty member’s assignment for that term and serves as the basis for annual evaluation discussions.

Teaching reductions, course releases, and rebalancing

Teaching responsibilities may be reduced, reassigned, or rebalanced when there is an elevated service expectation, a specialized research or creative scholarship assignment, an administrative assignment, or another approved responsibility that warrants such an adjustment. School-level policy should clearly define the approval process and documentation requirements associated with teaching reductions, course releases, course cancellations, or other forms of workload rebalancing.

When a course is canceled because of low enrollment or other programmatic factors, the cancellation does not automatically reduce the faculty member’s total workload expectation. The School Director (or designee), in consultation with the faculty member, should determine an appropriate alternative assignment that supports unit needs and is consistent with the faculty member’s appointment, role, and expertise. Such assignments may include reassignment to another course or instructional activity; advising, mentoring, curriculum development, assessment, accreditation, recruitment, outreach and engagement, service, research/creative scholarship, or other approved work. Any resulting change in workload distribution should be documented in the annual or semester workload agreement so that expectations, deliverables, and evaluation criteria remain clear. When teaching responsibilities are modified, the faculty member’s overall workload distribution should be adjusted accordingly to reflect the revised assignment (for example, 40% teaching, 40% research/creative scholarship, and 20% service).

Course buyouts through external funding

Schools should describe the possibility of buying out teaching through grant or contract funding when allowed by university policy and feasible for program delivery. Buyouts must be approved by the School Director and reflected in the workload agreement for the affected term, including the corresponding increase in research and creative scholarship or other approved assignment categories.

In-office expectations and office hours

School policies should address in-office and on-campus presence expectations relative to teaching and service assignments. Expectations should be stated in a way that supports student access, advising, committee participation, and other essential obligations while allowing appropriate flexibility for research, creative work, and outreach activities.

Each school policy should specify minimum required office hours relative to assignment. The Virginia Tech Faculty Handbook requires faculty to provide several regularly scheduled office hours each week and to include office hours and contact information on the course syllabus. Schools may set numeric minimums (e.g., a minimum number of scheduled office hours per week) and may define additional availability expectations by appointment.

Equity, transparency, and evaluation

Each school policy should include mechanisms to support equitable distribution of service and other high-demand roles over time. Schools are encouraged to maintain a service inventory and rotation plan. Workload assignments and outcomes should be discussed during annual evaluation, including the Faculty Activity Report and any school-level review materials.

Workload disagreements should be addressed first through consultation within the school. Schools should also reference applicable university mediation and grievance procedures for workload-related concerns.

Academic-year availability window

Faculty Handbook language indicates that faculty are expected to be available two weeks prior to the first day of classes and two weeks following commencement.

Appendix A

Implementation Guidance, Examples, and School-Level Translation

College of Architecture, Arts, and Design

Status and purpose. This appendix supplements the College of Architecture, Arts, and Design Faculty Workload Guidelines. It explains how the college framework should be translated at the school level and provides nonbinding examples. It does not replace the school-level policies required by the guidelines, alter university policy, or create an entitlement to a particular assignment, release, or percentage.

A.1 College framework and school-level responsibility

The college guidelines establish common workload categories, baseline departure points, and documentation expectations. They are intentionally not a single formula for all AAD disciplines or appointment types. Each school is responsible for adopting a workload policy that reflects its instructional formats, disciplinary norms, accreditation expectations, program needs, staffing model, and faculty roles while mapping local calculations to the college categories.

A school may use credit hours, didactic hours, teaching units, course equivalents, percentage-based assignments, or another transparent local method. Whatever method is selected should be defined in writing, applied consistently, reviewed periodically, and capable of being translated into the college workload categories. A local policy should also explain how exceptions are approved and documented.

A.2 Understanding workload percentages

Workload percentages represent an average allocation of effort across the applicable appointment period. They are planning and documentation tools, not a requirement that each category occupy a fixed day of every week. Responsibilities frequently overlap, and the time required for teaching, scholarship, service, administration, and engagement may vary substantially from week to week.

Illustrative percentage Approximate planning reference Important qualification
100% A full workload across the appointment period The total assignment across all recognized categories.
20% Approximately one-fifth of total effort May be understood as roughly one day in a five-day planning model, averaged over time.
10% Approximately one-tenth of total effort A planning reference of about four hours per week during the semester, averaged over time.

A.3 Teaching equivalencies and instructional modifiers

Student-registered credit hours provide the shared reference point for instructional activity, but they do not by themselves measure all instructional effort. Each school should publish an equivalency method that recognizes the characteristics of its courses and programs. The school method should avoid assuming that either contact hours or course preparation alone provides a complete measure.

As applicable, a school equivalency matrix should address lecture and seminar instruction; studio, design-lab, laboratory, clinical, production, rehearsal, ensemble, and performance-based instruction; applied lessons and recurring individualized instruction; independent study, capstone, thesis, dissertation, and committee supervision; team teaching; multiple sections and distinct preparations; enrollment, assessment, safety, equipment, and production obligations; new course development or substantial redesign; and online or hybrid delivery when it materially changes instructional effort.

Modifiers should be objective, limited to documented conditions, and applied consistently. When a condition cannot be known when the annual agreement is completed, the school policy should provide a defined review point after enrollment or assignment information becomes reasonably stable. Any adjustment should be recorded through a written amendment to the workload agreement.

A.4 Illustrative instructional scenarios

Higher-credit studio or design lab

A six-or eight-credit studio with extended contact, iterative critique, continuous assessment, and supervisory responsibilities may be assigned a value greater than one three-credit lecture course. The school should state the local calculation and how it maps to the college percentage framework.

Lecture or seminar requiring unusual preparation

A lecture or seminar is not presumed to require minimal preparation. A school may recognize a time-limited modifier for a new course, major redevelopment, unusually intensive assessment, or other documented circumstances that materially increase instructional effort.

Applied or individualized instruction

A school may group recurring private lessons or other individualized instruction into teaching units based on student credit, regular contact time, preparation, feedback, assessment, and the number of students assigned.

Multiple sections and course preparations

A school may distinguish between additional sections of the same preparation and additional distinct preparations. The calculation should be stated in advance and applied consistently.

Production, performance, or safety-intensive instruction

A school may account for required rehearsals, production supervision, technical oversight, equipment or facility responsibility, and safety obligations when those duties materially exceed the baseline represented by registered credit hours.

A.5 Mentoring, advising, and thesis supervision

School policies should recognize substantive mentoring and advising that is not fully captured through scheduled courses. Recognition should be based on the nature, frequency, and expected effort of the assignment, not solely on the title of the activity.

School policies should distinguish, as applicable, among major advisor or thesis/dissertation chair; committee membership; undergraduate thesis or capstone supervision; graduate committee service outside the faculty member’s school; supervision of graduate teaching assistants; advising student organizations; and other recurring student-support responsibilities.

An activity may be classified as teaching when it is credit bearing or entails sustained and defined instructional responsibilities. It may be classified as service when it is intermittent, non-credit-bearing, or primarily supports program or institutional functions. It may relate to research and creative scholarship when the student work is integrated into a faculty member’s scholarly or creative program. The school policy should identify the primary workload classification and may note a secondary relationship when useful. Substantial assignments should be documented in the workload agreement, with reasonable caps and a process for exceptions.

A.6 Service, administration, and recurring institutional labor

A school service table should identify common service roles and an assumed range of effort. Committee membership alone should not determine workload value. Relevant considerations include leadership responsibility, meeting frequency and duration, preparation, required follow-up, decision-making authority, accreditation or compliance obligations, and the duration of the assignment.

Routine professional responsibilities, including ordinary email, brief meetings, document review, and incidental program support, are generally included within the baseline service or administrative allocation and should not require task-by-task timekeeping. When recurring or cumulative responsibilities materially exceed the baseline, the faculty member and school leadership should review whether the responsibilities should be reduced, reassigned, or recognized through an adjusted service or administration allocation.

Formal program leadership, scheduling, budget, personnel, assessment, or operational responsibility should be designated as administration rather than routine service. Advising student organizations, recruitment, event organization, external graduate committee work, and similar activities should be defined in the school policy according to their purpose and expected effort.

A.7 Research and creative scholarship expectations by appointment type

Each school should define expected research and creative scholarship outcomes for the faculty categories used in that school and for common allocation levels. Expectations should be appropriate to the appointment, rank, discipline, career stage, and position description. The same percentage does not necessarily imply identical forms, volume, or impact of work across appointment types.

For tenured and tenure-track faculty, the school policy should connect the research and creative scholarship allocation to an active scholarly or creative program consistent with school criteria. For Collegiate Faculty and Professors of Practice, expectations should reflect the position description and may emphasize applied practice, pedagogical scholarship, professional activity, creative work, or other appropriate contributions. Instructor-line faculty should receive a research and creative scholarship allocation only when appropriate to the position and formally assigned.

Elevated allocations should be time-bound and documented with a rationale, expected outcomes, and corresponding adjustment to teaching, service, or other categories. Examples may include a major grant, book, exhibition, production, performance, design project, or other significant scholarly or creative undertaking. The existence of a project alone does not automatically establish a particular reduction; the adjustment depends on the documented scope, timing, unit priorities, and capacity to meet instructional needs.

A.8 Outreach and engagement in relation to scholarship and evaluation

Outreach and engagement should be used as a distinct workload category when a faculty member has a formalized, university-sponsored assignment with defined expectations, deliverables, and effort. The category is intended to make assigned work visible, not to diminish its value or prevent recognition of scholarly or creative dimensions.

A single project may include teaching, scholarship, service, administration, and engagement components. For workload planning, the agreement should identify the project’s primary assigned purpose and avoid double counting the same effort. For annual review, promotion, tenure, or reporting systems, the faculty member may describe the project’s full nature, methods, products, dissemination, peer or professional review, public impact, and other relevant outcomes consistent with applicable evaluation standards. Workload classification does not by itself determine how an activity must be characterized in an evaluation dossier.

A.9 Annual agreements, changing conditions, and rebalancing

The annual or semester workload agreement should identify assigned responsibilities, percentages, expected outcomes when applicable, and the basis for any departure from the school baseline. Faculty consultation should occur before the agreement is finalized and when material changes are proposed. Because enrollment, grants, leaves, productions, administrative needs, and other assignments may change, each school policy should include a written amendment process. The process should identify when assignments will be reviewed, who approves changes, how the faculty member is consulted, and how the revised assignment will be used in annual evaluation. If enrollment materially exceeds a defined threshold after the agreement is signed, the school may apply a published modifier or rebalance another responsibility. If a course is canceled, the alternative assignment should be identified in consultation with the faculty member and documented. If a major service, administrative, research, creative, or engagement assignment is added, another part of the workload should be adjusted so that the total assignment remains sustainable. Uneven fall and spring assignments may be used when appropriate, provided the academic-year total and the basis for the imbalance are clear. Course releases and buyouts may be supported by internal or external funds when permitted and approved. The school policy should describe the approval and calculation process.

A.10 Office hours, student access, and on-campus expectations

School policies should define expectations for student access, regular office hours, responsive communication, required meetings, advising, and other assigned obligations.

Physical presence should be connected to these responsibilities rather than treated as an independent measure of productivity or commitment.

Policies should preserve appropriate flexibility for research, creative practice, fieldwork, travel, remote or off-site work, disability-related needs, commuting, and other legitimate circumstances, provided assigned responsibilities are fulfilled. Attendance at optional social events or informal visibility should not substitute for documented workload expectations or evaluative criteria.

A.11 Transparency, review, and disagreement resolution

Each school policy should be available to faculty and should identify baseline distributions, equivalencies, modifiers, service and administrative designations, approval authority, exception processes, amendment procedures, and the regular review cycle. Faculty should be able to review their own current workload assignment and understand how it was calculated.

Questions or disagreements should first be addressed through consultation within the school. The school policy should identify the next administrative review step and reference applicable university mediation or grievance procedures. Periodic review should consider disciplinary change, accreditation requirements, enrollment and staffing patterns, implementation experience, and evidence of unintended inequities.