When faculty have a mixed load of undergraduate and graduate courses, the teaching load is usually balanced out with nine hours one semester and 12 hours the next. Faculty who have no documented research productivity generally teach 15 hours. Opportunities for released time and reassigned time are available and many faculty in the unit take advantage of this option. With the significant increases in enrollment in the past two years, there has been a need for some faculty to teach overloads for which they generally receive extra compensation. Primarily retired teachers and administrators are hired for the supervision of student teaching.
Adjuncts teach many of the courses at our off campus locations.
Adjunct faculty and graduate students, who teach part-time, participate in an orientation session within the department in which they work. During this session the adjuncts learn about the conceptual framework, as well as policies relating to teaching, supervising, assessment activities, and office hours. The teaching of adjunct faculty is evaluated in the same manner as that of full-time faculty. The Faculty Support Center, funded by a Title III grant, has as its primary mission to improve undergraduate education through faculty development. It originated in the COE but now serves as a university-wide means of providing professional and technological assistance to faculty through materials acquisition, periodic workshops, promotion of informal faculty dialogues on teaching issues, participation of a mentoring program, and provision of faculty development opportunities.