The slippage in numbers of faculty relative to academic staff has had a deleterious effect on faculty lives as well. Faculty are expected to perform in teaching, scholarship and service. With fewer faculty, the service component falls more heavily on those left, an almost unbearable burden. Student advising falls on fewer shoulders, and the availability of e-mail allows students to demand instant attention to their concerns without regard to the professor s other responsibilities. Increased Workloads and Quality.
Class size is another casualty of the speed-up.
Many faculty at the comprehensive campuses now teach nine hours, but that reduction has been achieved by simply dividing student numbers by three instead of four. Far more colleagues are still teaching twelve or even fifteen hours. Success in teaching is sometimes measured by the large number of students taught, with no attention to what is being learned. Numbers of preparations is another example of heavier workloads. Probationary faculty are sometimes given three and four preparations a semester, making it difficult for them to establish themselves as proficient teachers, and depriving them of time for scholarship.