Faculty Workload Project Final Report

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Ithaca College Faculty Workload Project was initiated as part of the Associated New American
Colleges (ANAC) Faculty Workload Project, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts from 1998-2000. The
ANAC project originated in discussions about the unique problems of faculty work at comprehensive
colleges, which, being neither liberal arts colleges nor research universities, try to provide the best of both
of these institutional models. In comprehensive colleges and universities, teaching is central to the mission
and faculty spend considerable time outside of class with students discussing course work and
professional interests. At the same time increasing expectations that faculty will pursue research and
creative work that will bring visibility and academic stature to their institution have become important in
comprehensives as they have begun to find their place in the larger academic community. Service
expectations have also grown with the complexities of shared governance that has become increasingly
important in these institutions. Ithaca faculty, like those in other ANAC schools, have experienced
difficulty in balancing these demands and sought alternatives to organizing their work more effectively
while refocusing their efforts on institutional mission.

The ANAC Faculty Workload Project was an opportunity for faculty to address these problems
collaboratively and over a period of several years. The Ithaca Faculty Workload Project sought solutions
to the problems of increasing faculty work through exploration of the concept of differential work, in
which faculty within an academic department collaboratively define the work of the department and then
assign it based on individual professional interests, expertise, and short- and long-term goals and the needs
of the department as a whole. The potential of the differential work model for solving accountability
issues is receiving increasing attention in the higher education community and is being considered in liberal
arts colleges and research universities as well.

Seven academic departments participated in the Ithaca Faculty Workload Project from 1999-2002: Art
History, Organizational Communication, Learning, and Design, Physics, Physical Therapy, Psychology,
Sport Studies, and Writing. Each department undertook a project that would address both the larger
institutional project goals and departmental work issues. The projects centered on review of the
department mission, curriculum, and faculty work patterns, using a variety of approaches. Curriculum
review enabled the Psychology Department to reorganize its courses and teaching load for more effective
delivery, while establishing a collaborative method for faculty to review each others’ work plans annually.
The result of this activity has been a reduction of the annual teaching load to 18 load hours from 24. Other
departments pursued projects that focused on innovations in teaching that would increase student learning,
such as increased use of technology in certain courses, alternative class meeting formats that would
encourage independent learning, and student tutors for supplementary help in first-year courses. An
important part of the project has been exploration of ways to reduce the 24-hour annual teaching load.
With these models in place, implementation of the workload project in other departments on campus will
begin in Fall 2002 through the Academic Program Assessment and Planning initiative, part of the second
phase of institutional planning.

The success of the Ithaca Faculty Workload Project has been observed on several fronts. It has
addressed issues associated with faculty work by providing direction, flexibility, and the means to solve
these problems, while at the same time reinforcing collaboration as a positive force among colleagues and
between the faculty and the administration at the college. It has achieved significant attention at national
conferences through ANAC involvement and has been featured in two publications, A New Academic
Compact: Revisioning the Relationship between Faculty and Their Institutions (Anker, 2002) and
“The American Professoriate in Transition” (AGB Priorities, Spring, 2002).

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