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Standard 6.C
Personnel

   Target: Workload policies and practices permit and encourage faculty not only to be engaged in a wide range of professional activities, including teaching, scholarship, assessment, advisement, work in schools, and service, but also to professionally contribute on a community, state, regional, or national basis.  Formal policies and procedures have been established to include on-line course delivery in determining faculty load.  The unit's use of part-time faculty and of graduate teaching assistants is purposeful and employed to strengthen programs, including the preparation of teaching assistants.  Clinical faculty are included in the unit as valued colleagues in preparing educators.  Unit provision of support personnel significantly enhances the effectiveness of faculty in their teaching and mentoring of candidates.  The unit supports professional development activities that engage faculty in dialogue and skill development related to emerging theories and practices.

   Workload for full-time faculty.  Workload policies are essentially governed by the provisions of Article IX, Section D (marginal paragraphs 207-214) of the AAUP Contract (Exhibit 6.12).   In general, the AAUP contract calls for a 12-hour teaching load, although equivalencies may be invoked at the department level.  A frequent equivalency, especially in the College of Education, is a nine-hour teaching load for a faculty member teaching only graduate courses. 

   The table below includes data from the 1996-2000 AACTE/NCATE annual reports (Exhibit G-6) concerning mean teaching loads for faculty members appointed full-time in professional education.  These data have not been requested for the PEDS report since the 2000 report and they have not been gathered or calculated.  It is estimated that current data are similar to these.

   These teaching loads permit reasonable time for faculty members to participate in sponsored projects (external or internal funding) that support scholarly/creative activities and work in the P-12 schools.  In addition, the teaching loads permit reasonable time for service to the profession, curriculum development, advisement leadership responsibilities, department administrative tasks, institutional committee and other service work, and other professional responsibilities.

   Review of back issues of the COE's Monday Report, the Faculty Reports,  COE Annual Reports, and faculty vitae (Exhibit 5.2) will demonstrate many of the extensive ways that professional activities other than teaching are accomplished through the work load policies and practices. 

   Relatively small numbers (app. 10% of the full time equated faculty of the COE) of professional education faculty members are employed as "lecturers," e.g., full-time faculty members not on the tenure track.   In general, the lecturers hold one- or two-year term appointments, potentially renewable.  A 15-semester hour load is the "norm," although there are provisions both for accreditation considerations and various equivalencies.  In general, lecturers are responsible for instruction-related activities but have no responsibility for scholarly/creative activities or service-related activities.  Extensive policies governing the employment and use of lecturers are covered in the "Collective Bargaining Agreement by and Between Eastern Michigan University and the Eastern Michigan University Federation of Teachers (EMU-FT)" ("Lecturers Contract") (Exhibit 6.13). 

   On-line courses.  Formal policies governing on-line instruction have been established through a Memorandum of Agreement, part of the AAUP Contract.  These policies may be found in Exhibit 6.12, Article XXIV, Appendix M.   The provisions include receipt of a stipend, rights of ownership, assignment of ownership, and the like.  On-line courses for Fall 2003 may be seen by a click here .

   Part-time faculty.   Part-time, non-tenure track faculty members at EMU are known as "adjunct faculty" or "adjuncts."  In general, their responsibilities extend solely to teaching classes.  This is relatively recent terminology, dating from the establishment of the Lecturers Contract in 2001.   Prior to that time, non-tenure track faculty members were known as "full-time lecturers" and "part-time lecturers."  As a result, in older records, "lecturers" refers to all non-tenure-track teaching personnel.   For the FY04 budget of the COE, the full-time equated faculty percentage for adjuncts is approximately 10%.  This percentage generally increases during each year as tenure-track faculty members "buy off" some portion of their time through internal or external financial awards for special activities and projects.

   Part-time faculty members are used to supplement the competencies of the members of the full-time faculty in professional education.  In addition, they have been/are being used to address issues of rapid growth[1] in many aspects of the professional education program as well as to address the university's current budget difficulties.[2]  Fortunately, the greater Ypsilanti area includes a rich talent pool for well-qualified part-time faculty members.  In all cases, applicants are carefully screened by either the relevant academic department head or the department's personnel committee, or, in many instances, both.

   No graduate assistants are involved in the delivery of the professional education program.

   Clinical faculty members.  There are two types of "clinical" faculty members in the College of Education.  In one category are faculty members associated with the services of the COE Clinical Suite (reading, counseling, speech and hearing).  In all but one instance, these faculty members are totally budgeted in and report to their respective departments.  The remaining instance is that of the audiologist.  She holds the rank of associate professor and her workload is evenly divided between teaching in the Department of Special Education and working in the COE Clinical Suite. She has the same responsibilities and expectations as any other faculty member of her department.

   Clinical faculty members (both institution based and school based) who work with pre-student teaching experiences report through the Department of Teacher Education.  Clinical faculty members associated with student teaching are budgeted in and report through the COE Office of Academic Services.  See Standard 3.B for information as to how clinical faculty persons are involved as part of the total faculty for professional education programs.

   Support personnel.  Each unit (departments and support units) within the College of Education is assigned support personnel.  In most instances this is addressed in terms of secretarial support, with at least one secretary (CS04) and one senior secretary (CS05) reporting to the appropriate administrator and assisting that group of departmental faculty members.  Additional COE support personnel (Professional/Technical, PT's) are assigned to centralized positions within the College that also support and enhance faculty members with their teaching and mentoring of candidates.  See Exhibit 6.14 for a list of positions and functions.

   Other support services are provided by persons performing administrative functions in the COE.  These include the Director of Student Teaching, and the leaders of the Office of Collaborative Education, the Educational Resources Center, the Academic Advising Office, the COE Clinical Suite, and the Urban Teacher Program, in addition to the department heads and associate deans.  See Exhibit 6.15 for a list of positions and functions.

   Professional development.   A wide variety of professional development activities are available to faculty members, supported by numerous offices, as well as by external grants.   Those available (usually through a competitive process) from central administration sources for sabbatical leave, research, travel, etc. may be seen through a click here .  Many other training opportunities are offered by campus offices outside the COE.  For example, grantsmanship training opportunities may be seen here .  Technology-related workshops are offered by several units, including Information and Communications Technology (ICT).  Teaching and research assistance has traditionally been available through the Faculty Center for Instructional Excellence, the Center for Instructional Computing, and the Center for Research Support. (Click here for additional information.)  However, these service units are currently under reorganization.  The Halle Library also provides faculty development activities.

   Within the COE, the various units sponsor conferences to which faculty members are invited and in which faculty members participate.  See COE Annual Reports, "special events" sections, for examples of these.  COE departments have funds available to support faculty travel for paper presentations and other professional conference attendance.  Examples of the use of these funds may be found in back issues of the COE's Monday Report and in the Faculty Reports.  As an example of department-initiated professional development activities, during this past year, the Department of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance began a series of sessions in which faculty members share research findings and other scholarly activities.