Rule 3349-3-203 | Faculty workload.
(A) Purpose.
The purpose of this rule is to recognize faculty for their contributions to the mission of the university and to establish a framework through which the teaching, research and service workload is equitably distributed between faculty members in a transparent and consistent manner.
(B) Scope
This rule applies to all types of faculty appointments for tenure, tenure track, or non-tenure track faculty employed by the university. This rule does not apply to affiliated or co-funded faculty, nor does it include faculty members with adjunct, intermittent, research or visiting appointments. This rule does not include faculty whose primary role is administrative, specifically faculty who serve in a role as a vice president, general counsel, college dean, or as the director of a college center or university institute (or specifically designated otherwise by the provost). The workload requirements set forth in this rule are meant to be complementary to and work in coordination with the faculty empowerment plan (FEP), the faculty incentive plan (FIP), the college and university research incentive plan (RIP), and inform faculty annual performance evaluation (APE).
(C) Definitions
Words have their ordinary and widely accepted meaning unless the word or phrase has been assigned a specific meaning within the university faculty bylaws, the university faculty bylaws appendices or university rules. The following terms are specific to this rule:
(1) "Academic year" for the purposes of this rule, aligns with the fiscal year of the university and commences on July first through June thirtieth.
(2) "Full time" for the purposes of this rule, refers to the expectation that a faculty member works approximately one thousand eight hundred forty hours per year for a twelve-month appointment (i.e., a fifty-two-week appointment, exclusive of vacations and holidays, is equal to forty-six work weeks per year at forty hours per week, or one thousand eight hundred forty work hours per calendar year).
(3) "Research" refers to investigation designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge relating broadly to public health, including behavioral and social-sciences research. The term encompasses basic and applied research and other mission-relevant scholarly activities, product development, innovation, entrepreneurship, and commercialization. In the context of this rule, most, but not all research will align with the university's research focus areas, although such alignment is not necessary to be considered research. Some faculty at the university perform important research which meets the definition, but does not necessarily align with a specific research focus area.
(4) "Research-active faculty" refers to faculty who have satisfied their research workload and annual performance expectations as described in this rule and established by the department chair.
(5) "Research-inactive Faculty" refers to those faculty who have failed to satisfy their research workload or annual performance expectations as described in this rule and established by the department chair and have consequently been temporarily relieved of their research workload pending completion of a plan to return to research-active faculty status.
(6) "Service" refers to required activities that directly support the university's mission and are required by regulatory, legal, accreditation, or other standards. All service activity should be in alignment with guidelines as set forth in the faculty handbook and university rules and faculty bylaws.
(7) "Teaching" refers to approved activities involving instructional interactions with NEOMED students that are consistent with the university's educational mission and goals and are reflected in individual college curricular calendars. Classroom (including instruction in the simulation center), online, or hybrid instruction all count equally toward workload requirements.
(8) "Teaching overload" refers to faculty who exceed the generally prescribed workload requirements for teaching and required service activities as assigned by their department chair. Only the total of teaching and assigned service workload will be considered in determining if an individual faculty member is in overload. All overload must be approved by the provost.
(9) "Workload substitution" refers to the ability of a faculty member to substitute one category of workload for another. Specifically, research-active tenure track or non-tenure track faculty members who have secured extramural funding with salary support may request to substitute their research activities for a portion of their teaching workload. Likewise, faculty who have been assigned significant administrative duties by the dean or provost may have a commensurate reduction in their teaching responsibilities to accomplish their administrative duties. The amount of reduction will be determined by the dean and approved by the provost. Any workload substitution can be no more than seventy-five per cent of the faculty member's teaching workload for the academic year unless recommended by the dean and approved by the provost. Department chairs and deans must ensure adequate availability of other faculty to deliver the complete curriculum, without overload, before recommending teaching workload substitution.
(D) Policy statement
(1) Annual workload distributions
(a) The workload percentages provided herein are determined annually by the department chair and approved by the dean of the college where the faculty member has their primary appointment and the provost. In the case where the faculty member's workload will be distributed across more than one college, the dean of the college holding the primary appointment must review, and if appropriate, also approve, the distribution and workload percentages outside of the college prior to submission to the provost. Satisfying workload requirements is a prerequisite to the performance standards established for reappointment, promotion, or tenure. General guidelines for workload distribution include:
(i) Tenured faculty: forty per cent teaching, forty per cent research, twenty per cent service;
(ii) Tenure track faculty: forty per cent teaching, fifty per cent research, ten per cent service; and
(iii) Non-tenure track faculty and research-inactive faculty: sixty to eighty per cent teaching, ten to twenty per cent scholarship, ten to thirty per cent service.
(iv) New tenure track assistant professors will have a fifty per cent teaching workload substitution in the first two years of employment and a twenty-five per cent reduction in year three, resulting in the following workload distribution:
(A) Year one and two: twenty per cent teaching, seventy per cent research, ten per cent service
(B) Year three: thirty per cent teaching, sixty per cent research, ten per cent service
(b) Faculty will not be required to keep track of their workload hours for workload credit calculations. The following approach will be used:
(i) Teaching: credit is only given for either teaching assignments as reflected in the college curriculum calendars, or courses taught on the NEOMED campus as part of the biomedical sciences (BMS) graduate program curriculum under the NEOMED Kent state university partnership. It is imperative that colleges maintain their calendars to ensure they accurately reflect all faculty teaching assignments.
The duties of a course director are essential activity for educational excellence, but vary widely depending on course size and complexity. Such duties are eligible for teaching workload credit, as determined in appendix C to this rule. If a particular course has more than one course director, the total amount of eligible teaching credit for course director responsibilities will be divided equally amongst all course directors, associate, or assistant course directors for a particular course.
(ii) Research: faculty will automatically be given credit for the maximum amount of research time to which they are entitled based on the above allocations. Research productivity and quality will be assessed by department chairs, deans, and the tenure and promotion committee in other venues as appropriate and will not be considered for purposes of this rule.
(c) Requests for exceptions to the foregoing general guidelines will be referred to the provost for review and determination.
(d) To the extent a faculty offer letter sets forth workload distributions different than stated in this rule, the dean will recommend a revised workload distribution that aligns with the tenets of this rule to the provost for review and determination.
(e) Required university-approved committees, along with maximum allowable service credit for each committee, are listed in appendix B to this rule. The provost must approve any additional activities not listed in appendix B to this rule or any committee or activity workload credit in excess of what is stated in appendix B to this rule.
(f) Appendix A to this rule lists those activities which are expected citizenship activities for faculty as members of the university community and are not eligible for workload credit. Some are activities for which faculty participation is important to students and the general university community. As appropriate and as determined by the provost, in consultation with the president, some of those may be included in the annual FIP for faculty participating in that plan and to incent participation in that plan. For those faculty not part of the FIP, their degree of support for these activities may be considered as part of their APE
(g) As noted previously, faculty may request a workload substitution, when external funding offsets the teaching the faculty member ordinarily would have done. The amount of payment must be consistent with the funded salary support. The external funding will be transferred from the office of research and sponsored programs' grant index to a university personnel index. The substitution in teaching workload for research-active faculty is limited to no more than seventy-five per cent of the faculty member's teaching effort per academic year, unless approved by the dean and the provost.
(h) Tenured or tenure track research-inactive faculty will have a sixty to eighty per cent teaching workload, with the remainder of their workload allocated to service, at the discretion of the department chair and approval of their dean and the provost. Research-inactive faculty may develop a plan in consultation with their department chair, which is approved by the dean and the provost, to return to research-active faculty status. The faculty member may return to research-active status after they receive an APE score of "meets expectations" or "exceeds expectations" along with the approval of the dean.
(i) Tenure track research-inactive faculty who do not complete a plan to regain research-active status or who complete a plan but do not achieve an APE research score of "meets expectations" or "exceeds expectations" after doing so will be moved to part-time employment status commensurate to the reduction of their research workload distribution, or if tenured, addressed in compliance with the post-tenure review process.
(j) This rule will align with the FEP as well as the FIP and RIP. Adjustments to compensation or workload may occur in the following circumstances:
Department chairs will distribute and allocate teaching and service workload across their faculty so there is, to the maximum extent possible, equity and avoidance of any one particular faculty member experiencing overload. An overload must be approved by the provost. When a faculty member has overload, the department chair may recommend a compensation adjustment to the dean to reflect the faculty member's increased productivity. Department chairs will assess both the degree to which the faculty member exceeds teaching workload requirements as well as the quality of their teaching. Deans will validate equitable distribution of teaching and service assignments and that, despite equitable distribution, overload was required to accomplish the university teaching mission. The amount of proposed compensation adjustment must be approved by the provost to ensure equity across all the colleges. Compensation will be from college funds and will be only for the current year. Faculty must qualify each year to receive consideration for additional compensation.
(2) Teaching expectations and the APE
(a) High quality education is critical to achieving the university's mission and, as such, is a requirement of all teaching faculty. Among factors considered to assess teaching quality, student evaluations will comprise at least twenty-five per cent of those factors. Faculty members should have high scores on those evaluations and the preponderance of comments about their teaching should be strongly positive. All faculty are expected to participate in the university's educational programs through teaching. To maintain teaching privileges, faculty are required to maintain an APE teaching component score of "meets expectations" or "exceeds expectations."
(b) Faculty who receive an APE teaching component score of "does not meet expectations" will have their teaching responsibilities temporarily suspended and within two months must successfully complete a teaching excellence course designated by the provost and also consult with the institute for teaching excellence on matters related to optimal course content design and delivery. After the director of the institute for teaching excellence confirms the successful completion of the teaching excellence course and consultation with instructional design staff, the faculty member may resume teaching duties.
(c) If a faculty member receives a second teaching component score of "does not meet expectations" on their APE within a three-year period, teaching privileges will be revoked until they are able to complete a comprehensive plan, developed by the department chair in consultation with the director of the institute for teaching excellence and approved by the dean, to improve their teaching skills, at which time they may request reinstatement of their teaching privileges. The faculty member may regain teaching privileges at the discretion of the dean following successful completion of all elements of the plan and after a successful, minimum three-month trial period and observation by the department chair.
(d) Tenured faculty members who have had their teaching privileges revoked will be addressed in compliance with the post-tenure review process. Non-tenure track faculty who have their teaching privileges revoked may have their employment terminated.
(3) Research expectations and the APE
(a) All tenure-track and tenured faculty are expected to engage in research as appropriate for their disciplines and rank to earn distinction in their respective fields. Non-tenure-track faculty are expected to have a research workload of at least ten per cent which may include scholarship, creative activities, or professional development, unless otherwise excused by the dean and provost.
(b) The maximum amount of protected research time eligible for workload credit is designed in this rule statement and is based on tenure status and longevity at the university. Research workload, however, will not be tracked as part of workload credit determination. The maximum amount of research workload allowable under the rule will be automatically granted to faculty and will be considered protected time. Research time in excess of that allocation is not eligible for workload credit and, as such, is a decision made by the individual faculty member with the approval of their department chair. Department chairs will ensure any research time in excess of that eligible for workload credit does not interfere with either teaching or required service obligations.
(c) Research-active faculty are expected to show evidence of peer recognition for their research through some combination of the following activities:
(i) An ongoing program of scholarship;
(ii) Demonstrated track record of grant proposal submissions;
(iii) Obtaining external grant funding;
(iv) Dissemination of scholarly contributions in peer-reviewed or other respected academic journals or scholarly books;
(v) Presenting at scholarly conferences or other public venues at a level that is consistent with expectations for peers at research universities; and
(vi) Developing a plan for scholarly productivity in the coming year.
(d) Faculty may be considered "research-inactive" beginning the semester following any of these occurrences:
(i) Absence of any peer-reviewed publications in the past three years; or
(ii) In the absence of external funding, no new applications for external research funding in the past three years; or
(iii) A lack of any research presentations (lectures or post presentations) at peer conferences in a three year period; or
(iv) The receipt of an APE with a research component score of "does not meet expectations" on two evaluations within a three year period.
There may be rare, extenuating circumstances where a faculty member may meet one or more of the above criteria but unrelated to research productivity and, in the opinion of the dean, should not be considered research inactive. In those instances, the dean may recommend to the provost that the specific faculty member in question not be considered research inactive and provide supporting justification for provost consideration and decision.
(e) Tenure track research-inactive faculty may be moved to part-time employment status equal to their teaching responsibilities. Tenured faculty will be addressed in compliance with the post-tenure review process. Non-tenure track faculty who become research-inactive faculty may have their employment terminated.
(4) Service expectations and APE
(a) The list of required committees and activities, along with maximum allowable workload credit for each activity, are contained in appendix B to this rule. For a faculty member to be eligible to receive credit for an individual service activity, those activities must be assigned and approved by the department chair. Activities that are not assigned and approved by the department chair, regardless of whether or not they are contained in appendix B to this rule, are not eligible for workload credit. Service workload credit may not exceed three credit hours per year without provost approval.
(b) Department chairs will assign service activities to their faculty as part of the APE. Every effort will be made to equitably distribute all service assignments.
(c) Department, college, and university service. For the department to achieve its mission, it is the responsibility of each faculty member to be engaged in service aligned with the university and college missions, regardless of rank. Service includes, but is not limited to:
(i) Leading and serving on university committees;
(ii) Attending and participating in at least seventy-five per cent of scheduled meetings, which is required to receive credit;
(iii) Participating in self-study or other accreditation processes. Attendance and participation in at least seventy-five per cent of scheduled meetings is required to receive credit;
(iv) Participating in student recruitment events, student orientation and culminating experiences. Attendance and participation in at least seventy-five per cent of all student recruitment events, student orientation events, or student culmination activities, along with attendance at a minimum of two student activity events per year is required to receive credit. Department chairs will track attendance for their faculty; and
(v) Serving on a dissertation/thesis committee. Attendance and participation in at least seventy-five per cent of scheduled meetings is required to receive credit;
(d) Administrative service. This consists of formal administrative roles authorized or assigned by the dean, provost, or president. The amount of credit given for administrative service activities will be determined by the dean and must be approved by the provost to ensure equity across colleges. Such administrative assignments are considered service activities.
(e) Professional and community service. Engagement in professional and community service activities provides benefits far beyond the university and are essential to having a well-developed faculty. Such activities are considered expected citizenship of faculty members of the university community and are not eligible for workload credit under this rule Professional and community service activities may include, but are not limited to:
(i) Leadership roles in professional organizations related to the faculty member's area of scholarly expertise or the university mission;
(ii) Serving on advisory boards;
(iii) Serving on journal editorial review boards;
(iv) Serving on grant review boards or ad hoc peer reviews of articles, books, and grant proposals;
(v) Participating in student community outreach/engagement events; and
(vi) Serving on community boards or in other similar roles with mission-aligned organizations.
(f) Faculty citizenship, as reflected through engagement and collegiality, is an expectation for all faculty members in proportion to their appointment as members of the university community, therefore, such activities are also not eligible for workload credit under this rule. If an activity is not listed in appendix A or B to this rule, or the FIP, it is to be considered an expected faculty citizenship activity. Examples of faculty citizenship are listed in appendix A to this rule and include, but are not limited to, the following activities:
(i) Attending all faculty meetings and major university assemblies and ceremonies;
(ii) Supporting faculty searches; and
(iii) Engaging in department seminars/colloquia.
(iv) Engaging in professional development activities; and
(v) mentoring and advising students or student organizations.
Department chairs may consider an individual faculty member's degree of participation and support of the university community via citizenship activities such as these when making promotion recommendations.
(5) Measurement of workload
(a) All faculty workload elements are defined in terms of credit hours equivalents with a full-time twelve-month workload minimum equal to thirty credit hours. As defined in state statute, one credit hour equals fifteen contact lecture hours.
(b) Credit hour equivalents for the expected types of teaching, research, and service commonly performed by faculty are set forth in appendix B to this rule and established utilizing the guidelines in appendix D to this rule.
(6) Workload determination procedures
(a) The department chair will review and determine each faculty member's workload annually as part of the annual performance review and forward it to the dean. Modifications to the distribution of effort in the workload assignments will be negotiated with the department chair to be compliant with all university workload policies and approved by the dean and provost, then forwarded to human resources for processing each year no later than March first.
(b) Special situations including, but not limited to approved sabbaticals and paid leaves will be processed in accordance with university rules.
(E) Process to address workload concerns
Faculty wishing to discuss concerns regarding their workload assignments should first bring their concerns to the attention of the department chair. If unable to resolve at this level, faculty may bring their concerns to the dean, who, as appropriate, will consult with the provost. Any deviation from the standards in this rule must be discussed with the provost so that there is equity across all colleges. After discussion with the provost, the decision of the dean is final.
(F) Policy compliance and updates
(1) Individual faculty workloads and instructional responsibilities will be assigned by the department chair and reviewed for compliance by the respective dean who is responsible for monitoring implementation and workload equity throughout the college. All workload expectations will align with the university and college appendices for appointment, promotion and tenure and ensure department productivity, advancement, and mission attainment. Oversight of and compliance with this rule is the responsibility of the provost.
(2) The board of trustees has expressly authorized the president, provost, and deans to update this rule as needed to comply with any statutory or university requirements that may be imposed over time.
(3) Willful failure to comply with workload rule requirements may subject faculty to the disciplinary procedures set forth in rule 3349-3-77 of the Administrative Code.
Last updated May 10, 2025 at 6:20 AM
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