Its chair noted that faculty in the program regularly take on between 22 and 23 credits of work a year. He explained that the program s faculty is dynamic and interested in undertaking new projects, and therefore has a tendency to overextend itself. Nursing faculty members teach similar loads, with 4 credit courses counted as if they were 3 credit courses. Communication and the Art s faculty members face a similar situation because of the regularization of their budget and their consequent inability to hire ad hoc instructors, upon which the program was heavily dependent before the 1995 cuts. Faculty members in programs with heavy commitment to the graduate programs experience overload through serving on student committees.
Overloads affect faculty productivity.
During his interview, the chair of one program burdened both by overloads and by numerous preparations, complained that doing the scholarship he had wanted to accomplish had simply become impossible. Although, we gathered no hard evidence, one can imagine that participation in faculty governance is also lessened by the necessity of teaching more than our already fairly heavy 21 credit load. Finally, as we will note below, because of perceived teaching necessities often various earned reassignments cannot be taken.