PSU-AAUP Workload Proposal

PSU-AAUP has proposed a new contract article about faculty workload that would improve education at Portland State and put the breaks on how much work the Administration can assign faculty members. 

So far, PSU has refused to discuss any aspect of our proposal.  Their only response has been, “No.  Ain’t gonna happen.”

PSU-AAUP Workload Proposal

The goal of our proposal is to improve the quality of education of PSU by:

• Lowering the student to faculty ratio from 33:11 to 20:1.

• Increasing the number of courses taught by tenure-related faculty to 85% from less than 50% (by hiring more tenure-related faculty).
   
• Creating fair procedures for defining, measuring, and assigning faculty workloads.

• Creating fair procedures for appealing unsustainable and unreasonable workloads.
  
  

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PSU-AAUP Proposes New Contract Language on Faculty Workload

PSU faculty report that workload has risen sharply over the past 15 years without an accompanying increase in salary. Both tenure-related and fixed-term faculty workloads have increased.

Putting the Brake on Unreasonable Faculty Workloads
For far too long, PSU faculty members have borne the brunt of increasing student enrollment and decreasing investment in higher education.  PSU-AAUP proposes to add a new article on workload to the 07-09 contract. The main points in the article include:

1. Setting the expected time expenditure at 40 hours a week for a 1.0 FTE appointment.
2. Clarifying what sorts of work bargaining members perform and how much of it they may reasonably be assigned.
3. Allowing departments and programs to create workload guidelines to aid in identifying expected activities and defining reasonable workloads.
4. Setting up procedures for assigning and documenting workload.
5. Creating procedures for appealing unreasonable workloads.
6. Setting university-wide standards for student-faculty ratio.  PSU-AAUP is proposing a goal of 20:1 overall, not to exceed 25:1 in any individual college.  Currently, the PSU student-faculty ratio is 33:1.  We are proposing a plan to reach student-faculty ratio goals in incremental steps.
7. Setting university-wide standards for the percentage of student credit hours taught by tenure-related faculty.  PSU-AAUP is proposing a goal of 85%, not to exceed 75% for any individual college.  Currently, less than 50% of student credit hours are taught by tenure-related faculty members.

We hope that a workload article will make explicit the expectations surrounding faculty workload and bring a halt to the Administration’s current practice of implementing unfunded mandates (more students, more classes, more grants, more committees, etc.) off the backs of the faculty. 

To date, the PSU Administration categorically refuses to discuss this article.

Article by: Michelle Gamburd, Anthropology

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Student Enrollment & Tenure-Related Faculty Growth from 1994-2007

Chart Courtesy of Jason Newsom, Institute on Aging

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