Dear Faculty Colleagues,
The American Council on Education published an extensive report in 2021 that makes a compelling case for having an explicit workload policy. Such policies provide greater transparency and workload equity, make visible university work that is often invisible, and recognize the context of faculty efforts while explicitly defining how effort and performance meet or exceed expectations for different faculty roles.
Workload at Washington State University is largely undefined (Faculty Manual, section IV.A.3), likely resulting in inconsistent effort and performance expectations that contribute to dissatisfaction with recognition for faculty teaching (59.8%), scholarship (74.7%), service (62.5%), advising (74.7%), outreach efforts (72.8%), and with division of labor for committee (63.6%), teaching (66.4%) and advising (76.6%) assignments (COACHE 2024 faculty satisfaction survey).
Given these findings and after consultation with my leadership team and deans, I have decided that the Provost’s Office will assemble a Workload Policy Task Force (WPT) to develop guidance for how to implement a comprehensive workload policy at Washington State University. The resulting policy and guidance will help chairs and directors work with their units to define workload equivalencies for teaching, research and training, and service activities with clearly defined expectations for work assignments that will also help reduce uncertainty about the tenure and promotion process. The end goal is for every unit to have the tools to ensure that workload assignments are fair and apportioned appropriately across faculty tracks and ranks, and to ensure that there is flexibility to adjust workloads based on career stage and changing needs of their unit.
To learn more about the WPT and/or to apply to serve on the task force, please visit our webpage.
If you have any questions regarding the WPT, please contact Doug Call (Sr. Vice Provost) at drcall@wsu.edu. Please look for future updates on workload policy as we progress through the academic year.
Best,
Chris Riley-Tillman
Provost and Executive Vice President