Workload Task Force

Forum Post

Dear WSU Administrators,

It has come to the attention of many faculty that details and stated goals of the Workload Task Force (WTF) are largely absent. How these goals align with peer and aspirational institutions is missing, and the pursuit of equity through the task force rings hollow. Members of the task force have conveyed that new workload policies will be justified by the unit and approved by the respective deans of the unit and the provost. This is a top-down approach that further ignores the actual results of the COACHE survey. Careful inspection of the COACHE results supplied to faculty highlights that satisfaction with the workload is essentially the same as it was in 2014. In contrast, one of the largest areas for improvement continues to be in the area of shared governance, with only 25% of the faculty finding any degree of satisfaction with the senior leadership. Yet, the continued resource extraction from the core WSU college (i.e., CAS) and the budgetary mismanagement persists.

The stated goals of the WTF are geared toward workload equity, but keeping with the theme of the COACHE survey, this assertion requires evidence. Trust must be earned. It is true that clear examples of inequitable workload exist across colleges, however, instead of dealing with those individual issues, the current move appears to be directed at increasing the workload of all faculty. Rather than address core issues associated with fiscal inequity, student recruitment, and faculty retention, the administration continues to ignore that problem and strain units that do not have the capacity to further increase workloads and maintain R1 status. Please do not flippantly dismiss this statement as hyperbole. Doubling workloads (e.g., 1:1 to 2:2 and 2:2 to 4:4) would have disastrous consequences for the recruitment and retention of faculty and graduate students. Moreover, the current task force policy ignores the different roles professors occupy across disciplines and outright dismisses graduate education. At this stage, it is worth noting that the majority of the task force is comprised of administrators (i.e., those individuals who have not served in an instructional capacity in the recent past), as is the non-functioning Provost Advisory Council. It is also curious to see that administrative workload policies are noticeably absent from the task force.

If the goal of the task force is a unified, equitable workload across faculty, then there must be an equitable distribution of tuition dollars to support faculty hiring and retention in the units where the actual work is performed. The administration is challenged with a simple task: justify with examples how units across all colleges will be held to the same workload requirements and how tuition dollars will be used to equitably support these efforts. Will professors and instructors in CAS have the same instructional workload as those across CAHNRS? How is this proposed policy aligned with peer and aspirational institutions? Please provide worked examples, including contact hours, unit budget allocation, and historical trends for these metrics, as part of your answer.

Finally, this faculty forum blog is a litany of “I told you so” points of concerned faculty. Arguably, the points raised here will fall into the same category and be ignored by the administration or be met with sophomoric responses, yet again fully demonstrating the Provost’s disdain for shared governance.

WTF indeed.

Response

The Faculty Senate Executive Officers have been notified of this forum post and will respond back once more information becomes available.

Comment