Semesters vs. quarters/Administration statement about faculty workload

From CSWiki

In considering conversion from quarters to semesters at Cal State L.A., one has to look at the trade-offs for tenure-track faculty workload. Faculty could be assigned a standard workload of 12 D-WTUs, meaning for many, a 4-4 workload. With this straightforward conversion (12 units in the quarter system and 12 units in the semester system), there are no additional costs. However, many, but not all, tenure-track faculty members find a 4-4 semester workload to be more onerous than a 3-3-3 quarter workload, and therefore would be much more interested in a semester conversion with a 3-3 standard semester instructional workload for tenure-track faculty members.

Provost Cardoza has stated that faculty can work with administration to reduce the workload towards 9 units D-WTU per semester, but that there is no guarantee that a 3-3 semester course load of 3-unit courses can be achieved for each faculty member. Still, there is the possibility to work towards a 3-3 semester (or 9 units per semester) load for many faculty members. If this is to be achieved, faculty and deans will need to balance a number of considerations:

• additional funding for teaching from the state budget (in extremely short supply) or external funding for course release;

• maintaining an appropriate proportion of TT to temporary faculty, TAs, and GAs;

• subject-based accreditation standards that may require a high percentage of courses to be taught by TT faculty;

• the need to raise average class size and, consequently, SFR if tenure-track faculty members teach a 3-3 load and no additional resources are available for instruction;

• an across-the-board raise of course size vs. selective use of very large lecture or online courses; and

• reducing preps by teaching two sections of the same course where this is possible.

Academic Affairs conducted a preliminary study of the magnitude of different combinations of changes to the factors listed above. In the simplest terms, an increase of about $4 million would be necessary to “buy tenure-track faculty down” to 9 units per semester—but this approach would lower the percentage of sections taught by tenure-track faculty members to an unacceptably low level. At the opposite extreme, it would require approximately $19.5 million to hire enough additional tenure-track faculty so that 75% of sections are taught by TT faculty, while the average class size remains the same and the standard tenure-track workload is at approximately 9 units per semester.

Given the long-term financial constraints of the CSU system, the likeliest means to move towards a standard 9-unit D-WTU instructional load in semesters for tenure-track faculty would be through:

• increasing average class size;

• adding more large lecture classes and more very large lecture classes with TA and GA support;

• considerable additional external grant, foundation, or endowment funding of release time; and

• perhaps some modest additional funding to supplement the budget for instruction.

In addition, to reduce the number of courses but not necessarily the number of units, some programs, particularly at the graduate level, may develop a number of high-unit courses (more than 3 semester units) that incorporate two or more existing quarter courses.