[COSEAfaculty] Fwd: Workload Procedure

Fri Jul 5 12:27:09 CDT 2013

Dear All,

1)      As Ben, Bob and others noted, time and effort required for thesis related activities differ from discipline to discipline and in some instances to the sub-discipline level. Considering this variation, College guidelines could be a general directive for each department to come up with specific guidelines (similar to tenure and promotion guidelines).

2)      I agree that for supervising theses some credit is better than no-credit. However, there is an inherent imbalance in the currently proposed credit structure. From my experience, supervision of Master’s and Honors thesis take more time and effort than supervising a 595 (non-thesis), which takes more effort than an independent study. Completing a master’s thesis involving lab experiments may usually takes 4-5 semesters and honor’s thesis may take 2-3 semester’s, whereas 595 may take 1-2 semester worth of effort and independent study 1 semester. Since credits are assigned only upon the registration of courses, the total credits for each of these activities according to the graduation requirements of biology will be

1)      Master’s thesis – 1.2 (students are required to register a total of 2x3credit 518/thesis class.

2)      Honors thesis – 0.3 (students are required to register 1x3 credit of 490/thesis class.

3)      Non-Thesis – 0.6 (students are required to register 1x3 credit 595/non-thesis class

4)      Independent study – 0.3 – 0.4 credit/student, depending on whether it is 3 credit or 4 credit course.

Considering the time and effort needed to complete an Honors thesis, I would like to suggest assigning equal credits for supervising Honors theses and Master’s non-theses.

Thank you

Venu 

From: coseafaculty-bounces at tamuc.edu [mailto:coseafaculty-bounces at tamuc.edu] On Behalf Of Pamela Webster
Sent: Thursday, July 04, 2013 3:28 PM
To: coseafaculty at tamuc.edu
Cc: Linda Openshaw
Subject: [COSEAfaculty] Fwd: Workload Procedure

Hi, everyone.

I'm forwarding some comments from Lani (thanks, Lani...  And the typo on the "negate" has been fixed in my running draft, thanks everyone who caught that mistake that occurred in the editing process.)

Also, a note about the deadline:  this was set by the admin, not me.  It was in the original email that went out three weeks ago when Grady called us to meet, and again two weeks ago when he sent out the suggested workload credits that appear in this procedure.  As one of the authors of the procedure, I agree it was a tight deadline...

It IS an unfortunate deadline, though, because even though it's been three weeks, the timing is bad.  Not only is it directly after a national holiday, but it's a busy time of year.  Many of us are just now wrapping up Summer I while others have been away from work and in many cases even out of the country.  If we can get an extension for further discussion and to be able to vote on the procedure, that will be great, but if not, this is what we're working with so far...  Sorry!

The university policy "requires" us to have a college-wide policy in place that we all live by.  (Again, I didn't write that policy.  It came out of the Faculty Senate and the Dean's Council, I believe.). That's why we're working on this college-wide procedure, and on such a tight deadline...  If we don't want a college-wide policy, perhaps we should talk to the admin...

That said, I'd like to move the conversation forward a little.  Grady has said that the policy is supposed to be a work from the faculty, and that it needs to be "ratified", so to speak, by the faculty.   Therefore, I'm open to adding suggestions for altering the equivalencies as the faculty see as FAIR equivalencies based on the level of work required to perform each task.

I DO think that Dr. Dorsett and others have a point about it taking a LOT of students who are working on thesis, 595, Ind. Study, etc., to add up to 1 sch of release, much less a 3 hour course equivalency.  In many cases, working with that many students would, indeed, reflect a lot more work than simply teaching a course.  Therefore, I wonder what WOULD be fair?  In my brain, I'm thinking much like Lani:  any credit is better than no credit.  However, it SHOULD reflect the amount of work involved in the research.  Many of us spend a lot of time supervising GATs who are teaching courses or labs during a semester.  Should it be equivalent to supervising a GAT during a semester?  Should it hold MORE weight?  Other suggestions?  Thoughts?  Ideas?  Please let me know and we can run with them and see what everyone thinks.

Also, to answer your question, Lani,  NTT faculty doing research would use the same form as TT faculty, as many of us do now.  That was in one of the drafts, but I'll go back and make sure it doesn't get edited out of the final draft.  Thanks!

As Bob said, have a happy and safe Fourth of July, and I look forward to hearing from you!

Pamela.

Dr. Pamela S. Webster

Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Professional Track

Director of the Math Skills Center and

Coordinator of Developmental Mathematics

Binnion 315.             903-886-5950

Begin forwarded message:

	From: "Lani Lyman-Henley" <Lani.Lyman-Henley at tamuc.edu>
	Date: July 4, 2013, 1:00:23 PM CDT
	To: "Pamela Webster" <Pamela.Webster at tamuc.edu>, "Grady P Blount" <Grady.Blount at tamuc.edu>, "Lani Lyman-Henley" <dr_zot at yahoo.com>
	Cc: "Robert L Williams" <Bob.Williams at tamuc.edu>, "Haydn Fox" <Haydn.Fox at tamuc.edu>, "Gregory Wilson" <Gregory.Wilson at tamuc.edu>, "Delbert Horton" <Delbert.Horton at tamuc.edu>, "Aaron Cooper" <Aaron.Cooper at tamuc.edu>, "Tingxiu Wang" <Tingxiu.Wang at tamuc.edu>, "Lindsey L Walton" <Lindsey.Walton at tamuc.edu>, "Erin Fortenberry" <Erin.Fortenberry at tamuc.edu>, "Jackie Wahrmund" <Jackie.Wahrmund at tamuc.edu>, "Brent Donham" <Brent.Donham at tamuc.edu>, "Lani Lyman-Henley" <dr_zot at yahoo.com>
	Subject: RE: Minutes from CoSEA workload procedure meeting

	Quick note- I wasn't sure "reply all" to the latest posting was actually going to the correct audience, so went back to this group. If it was supposed to go elsewhere, please let me know, or feel free to forward. So here's my message: 

	The deadline is tomorrow, right? A shame, since it seems more discussion is wanted. 

	A couple of notes regarding document and comments: 

	First, we usually see students taking 518, 595, independent study and honors thesis credits in 3 hour blocks, so remember that in your calculations- .3 per undergrad per semester, .6 per masters student per semester, does add up a bit better than discussion would seem to indicate. BUT I do wonder about that still running less than supervising GATs teaching labs...which would seem to take less time and effort than that invested in student research. On the other hand, all of this is more than we were previously getting (which was *nothing*). 

	Regarding number of courses taught- bio faculty expect 3 (or even 4) courses per semester unless requesting time towards research or other activities (which MIGHT argue you down to only 2 courses), not sure lamenting not making ends meet with a 2 4-hour course load will garner much sympathy from us. Just saying. ;) 

	Agreed on the point that there are clearly differences in how specific departments handle some of these details, and that there should be language allowing departmental modifications to be considered. 

	And another question- regarding the sample evaluation form for NTT faculty- if you are among those requesting time for research, is this supposed to be applied to the professional development section? Or do you use a different form? Or is that a completely different discussion? 

	Oh, and "negated" is misspelled. :) 

	Lani 

	> 
	>    -----Original Message----- 
	>    From: Grady P Blount 
	>    Sent: Fri 6/21/2013 8:36 AM 
	>    To: Gregory Wilson; Delbert Horton; Aaron Cooper; Tingxiu Wang; Haydn Fox; Lindsey L Walton; Erin Fortenberry; Jackie Wahrmund; Pamela Webster; Lani Lyman-Henley; Brent Donham; Robert L Williams

	> 
	>    Cc: Ben Jang; Grady; Haydn Fox; Jim Heitholt; Kay Parrish; Kent Montgomery; Larry Lemanski; Matt Wood; Sang Suh 
	>    Subject: Minutes from CoSEA workload procedure meeting 
	>      
	>    Good morning. 
	> 
	>      
	> 
	>    See attached minutes from yesterday's meeting on creating a CoSEA workload procedure. If there are changes needed, please advise me.

	> 
	>      
	> 
	>    My understanding is that Aaron Cooper and Pamela Webster are now in charge of this project. 
	> 
	>      
	> 

	> 

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