A framework to assess higher education faculty workload in U.S. universities

ABSTRACT

Faculty are often evaluated on perceptions of their teaching effectiveness, their service activities, and their research productivity. To meet their institutional standards in each area, the faculty must properly allocate and manage their time. Administrators and department chairs have the means to facilitate or hinder faculty research productivity through teaching and service assignments. This paper provides administrators and faculty with a framework to evaluate each faculty member’s annual workload to ensure that adequate time should be available to meet institutional expectations. This framework illustrates the negative effects that multiple course preparations and heavy teaching loads have on research productivity. Institutional policies should be adjusted to consider these effects on their faculty’s research productivity.

KEYWORDS:

• Faculty workload
• higher education policy
• research productivity
• faculty burnout
• faculty schedules

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew S. Griffith

Andrew S. Griffith, DBA, EA, CPA, CMA, CIA, CFE, CRMA, is an associate professor at Iona College, where he teaches undergraduate thesis research courses in the Honors Program and graduate accounting courses. He is a former Assistant Director of the Honors Program and a former chair of Iona College’s Human Subjects/Institutional Review Board.

Zeynep Altinay

Zeynep Altinay, PhD, is an assistant professor at Iona College, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in digital literacy. Her research focuses on social and political implications of environmental communication, and the strategic use of communication processes to foster environmental sustainability.