Written by Hal Nees
(Professor, Criminal Justice and Criminology)
The mission of Metro State is to educate students, and we, as faculty members, perform a great job of providing that education. We need to recognize how good we are at what we do for the students at Metro State. However, with this letter I am raising concerns that I believe we must discuss and resolve as a faculty.
For the past forty years the faculty members have carried this institution, developing the college and building a strong educational institution. We should be proud of all of our accomplishments. We hold degrees that would match favorably with the faculty members of most institutions. We are not paid at a high rate and will probably suffer through another year of stagnant wages due to the widespread economic problems that we face as a state and a nation.
We, the Metro faculty members, need to recognize that we work hard. To illustrate this point, a partial description of our workload is provided next.
• We teach 12 credit hours each semester. At a minimum this means that we spend three and a half to four hours per week for each credit hour that we instruct. To be conservative, I will assume the time to be three and a half hours. This means that faculty members spend 42 hours a week in the classroom and preparing for teaching. If we are preparing a new course or modifying a course, the minimal amount of time that I have allocated is very conservative and the demands of teaching are often more than 42 hours per week.
• We maintain five hours per week of office hours to advise students and are required to be available for additional office hours for student appointments. Most faculty members spend more time than this with appointments and advising outside of the required office hours.
• A conservative guess would be that faculty members spend a minimum of three hours per week on department, school and college committees, community service as well as other service to our professions. This is a conservative estimate; many faculty members spend way beyond this amount of time.
• Professional development work, keeping up with the field and completing research/creative work related to our areas of study takes much time and for the sake of discussion I shall assume that we spend another four hours per week. This varies from faculty member to faculty member with many of us spending much more time than this number of hours per week. Furthermore, most faculty members pay for some or all of the costs associated with professional development (e.g., conference fees and travel). We strive to maintain currency in the field and to complete research and creative outcomes as we are able to do so.
This means that a conservative estimate indicates that faculty members work a minimum of 54 hours per week. Research that I have read about faculty members teaching in an undergraduate program indicates that faculty members work approximately 55 hours per week. So, it is a fairly safe assumption to make that our faculty members work a minimum 50 to 55 hours a week.
The processes of retention, tenure and promotion are not well defined, and different faculty members have different views as to what are appropriate criteria. Our standards need to be high but reasonable; they should be appropriate for various disciplines but similar throughout the college; they should be clear but flexible to accommodate our differences and different skills; and they should be in writing and transparent. It is our task to develop the standards and then lead the members of the administration towards acceptance of our high, yet reasonable standards.
There is more pressure to complete research/creative work and publish articles and books than in the past. I also am concerned that the amount of time required to research and complete creative work is not fully recognized by some faculty members and administrators. I believe that we need to establish reasonable expectations for faculty members concerning the research and publications expected of them.
This is not a plea for lowering standards, but it is a plea for developing clear and reasonable standards that allow the faculty members to know what they must achieve to be retained, and to gain tenure and promotion. We must recognize the diversity of knowledge, skills, interests, and abilities of our faculty members and allow for the full development of these factors. We must not be caught in measuring what is easily and usually measured in retention, tenure and promotion, and not finding ways to measure and encourage faculty members to develop in teaching, service, and advising.
This letter is a call for discussion and action on the part of faculty members.
No comments:
Post a Comment