This page provides links to current faculty personnel policies of academic units within the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences. Some general faculty guidelines may include other policies and procedures for the department. Not all departments have renewable term policies, research faculty policies, or other specialized guidelines. Policies other than the current versions must be obtained from the academic unit. If you encounter any problems with the files, contact Kelvin White (kwhite@ou.edu).
The Dodge Family College of Arts and Science at the University of Oklahoma is strongly committed to ensuring that all students receive an outstanding education.
That all students have access to the courses that they need to complete their academic programs; that public resources and tuition revenues are used in an efficient manner consistent with accomplishing the university’s mission; and that faculty members are fully supported with the resources necessary to accomplish their professional goals while they are actively and productively engaged in teaching, research and public service. The college encourages faculty members to become recognized leaders within their disciplines, which will enrich the educational experience of all students, enhance the reputation of the university and contribute to the success of its alumni in their careers beyond graduation. To this end the college has implemented the following expectations for teaching by tenured, tenure-track and renewable term faculty members.
Any reduction in teaching expectations for faculty members must be approved in writing by their Committee A and the dean. The cost of replacing a faculty member in the classroom, including salary and fringe benefits, must be covered from some source other than centrally supplied one-time instructional support funds (Central OTIS funds). If faculty members are released from teaching it must not cause a decrease in the overall credit hour production of the unit or delay students’ progress towards graduation.
All modifications of teaching load, including requests to shift teaching to nonstandard semester distributions (e.g. from 2/2 to 1/3 over the span of a year) must be approved by the Dean through the Modification of Teaching Load form.
The college recognizes the following common categories of rationales for reduced teaching:
Effort distribution, as reported on the Summary Report of Annual Evaluation form, should be an accurate reflection of how faculty members spend their time. In the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, a teaching expectation of four organized courses of three credit hours per academic year corresponds to a teaching effort distribution of 40%. Faculty members who have a reduced teaching expectation should have a corresponding reduction in their teaching load, corresponding to a reduction of 10 percentage points per course released. Faculty members who are on leave during a semester should have a teaching load of 0% for that semester.
Changes in effort distribution provide academic units with a means to recognize and reward faculty members for focusing their activities on their professional strengths. With the approval of Committee A and the dean, faculty members may change their effort distribution annually among teaching, research and service. Changes in effort distribution must be reflected in corresponding changes in the relative weight that each activity counts in faculty evaluation. Thus, faculty members who change their teaching expectation to six courses per year would have 60% of their annual evaluation score based on the quality of their teaching.
A faculty member whose fall or spring semester in-load course is cancelled because of low enrollment or other circumstances not covered above will be expected to make up that course by teaching an additional course in-load during the same or a subsequent semester. To prevent the accumulation of courses that need to be made up, the make-up course should be scheduled during the subsequent fall or spring semester. Teaching a course in the summer without additional compensation is an acceptable way to make up for a cancelled course. All such arrangements must be approved in writing by Committee A and the dean.
All faculty members who have teaching duties assigned in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences are expected to teach their assigned number of organized courses each year. Organized courses have regularly scheduled classes with multiple students enrolled. The college recognizes that many faculty members engage in additional instructional activities. Some of these activities generate credit hours (e.g., supervising students in independent study, honors research and dissertation research), whereas others do not (e.g., advising undergraduate students and serving on graduate committees). Although these additional instructional activities constitute part of a faculty member’s total distribution of effort and are taken into consideration as part of a faculty member’s annual and other evaluations, they do not replace the expectation to teach organized courses.
The standard teaching expectation for full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty members in the college is four organized courses of three credit hours each during the fall and spring semesters, with a typical distribution of two courses each semester. Renewable term faculty members are expected to teach the equivalent of eight organized courses of three credit hours each during the fall and spring semesters, with a typical distribution of four courses each semester.
Individual departments, with the approval of the dean, may require higher or lower course teaching expectations depending upon various objective criteria, which include but are not limited to: recognized standards for workload requirements at peer institutions in the same or similar discipline; the terms of an original university appointment; the manner and structure of course delivery (e.g. distinctions between traditional lecture courses and courses with significant laboratory requirements); higher than average expectations for research productivity and external grants and contracts activity; and class size.
Not to exceed 25% of base salary. Includes work completed inside and outside of the College.
Faculty members who are teaching their assigned number of organized courses will be eligible to receive compensation in the form of additional pay or professional development funds for teaching additional courses during the fall and spring semesters. The scheduling of overload courses must be approved by Committee A and the dean, and will be dependent on student demand and the availability of funding. The overload teaching must result in increased credit hour production both for the faculty member and for the academic unit.
Faculty members who are not meeting their standard teaching expectation will not be eligible to receive additional compensation for teaching an overload course during the fall and spring semesters. This includes courses taught through other colleges, including the College of Liberal Studies and OU Outreach.
The overload pay is $5,000 per course.
If a faculty member is teaching outside of their unit, the salary is paid by supplemental pay and is subject to the 25% cap on earnings from internal university assignments unless the Provost approves an exception. Requests for exceptions should be submitted to the Dean’s Office by memo.
To ensure that all OU students have the opportunity to learn directly from faculty members and the university is using state funds and tuition efficiently, the University has asked colleges to achieve the following additional goals for teaching by tenured, tenure-track and renewable term faculty members:
