The following Q-and-A piece appeared in the November 2002 issue of the Academic Affairs Newsletter

Georgia Southern University has recently undertaken an initiative focused on faculty roles and rewards. The Task Force on Faculty Roles & Rewards is charged with examining and describing faculty roles as they currently exist at Georgia Southern. The results will be used to recommend ways of better aligning faculty assignments with our reward structure.

The active engagement of the faculty is vital to this effort's success, and one of the Task Force's aims is to maximize opportunities for communication and faculty participation. The following questions have been posed to task force members about the Faculty Roles & Rewards initiative.

Q: What is meant by "faculty roles?"
A: "Faculty roles" is a term that refers to the tasks and activities an individual performs in his or her capacity as a faculty member as well as the distribution of those tasks and activities. Teaching, scholarship/creative activity, service, and/or administration are four areas into which these professional activities can often be categorized.

Q: What is encompassed by faculty rewards?
A: While the tendency may be to focus on rewards such as tenure, promotion, and salary, faculty rewards covers a much broader array of acknowledgments, honors, and awards. Programs such as the Awards for Excellence, Educational Leave, and Faculty Development, Research, and Service grants all constitute elements of Georgia Southern's rewards system. Other rewards are less formalized, such as the amount of departmental travel funds or office and research space allocated to a particular faculty member.

Q: Why should Georgia Southern undertake this faculty roles and rewards initiative?
A: In recent years, many universities have initiated formal study of their systems of faculty roles and rewards, in an effort to align these systems better and enhance faculty members' opportunities to be professionally successful within them. The faculty is any institution's most important asset, and it makes sense to ensure that the university's roles and rewards structures are well understood and operating in unison, in order to be maximally supportive of faculty members. Georgia Southern's initiative was undertaken in response to the faculty's interest in evaluation, faculty assignments and distribution of effort, and reward system. The initiative will result in a better understanding of current faculty roles and workload practices, and recommendations for ways of improving their alignment with the institution's reward system.

Q: Is there a standard workload expectation for a full-time faculty member at Georgia Southern, and if so, what is it?
A: Yes, there is a standard load. While the Board of Regents Policy Manual used to specify that the "...normal teaching load of a faculty member of the University System of Georgia ordinarily shall be fifteen quarter credit hours per week" (Policy Manual circa 1993), that language has subsequently been dropped. The Board's current view is that faculty teaching loads and workloads fall within the purview of an institution rather than the central office (see System Perspectives on Faculty Teaching Load / Work Load, posted on the Board's website). The Faculty Handbook addresses the standard teaching load for full-time faculty at Georgia Southern, which is 12 credit hours per semester. Teaching load adjustments may be made with the recommendation of the chair and approval of the dean. A full workload is considered to be 15 hours per semester, with the three hour difference reflecting the non-instructional duties of a full-time faculty member, such as service and scholarship/creative activity.

Q: Is the Faculty Roles & Rewards initiative being driven by a desire to raise or make uniform teaching loads and/or overall workloads?
A: No, it is not. From our communications with the Provost, it is clear that the impetus for the initiative is neither to elevate teaching loads and/or workloads, nor to make them uniform. While the standard teaching load at our institution is 12 hours, the Provost has stated that he is fully receptive to reassignments that result in a lesser teaching load. It is important, however, that such load adjustments be equitable, justifiable, and based in policy. Reassignment also carries with it an obligation to document that the reassigned time was used productively. What is driving this effort is the desire to ensure the alignment of faculty roles with our rewards system. Such alignment should enhance each faculty member's ability to be successful within that rewards system.

Q: Part of the Task Force's charge is to identify "any disconnections between current faculty activities and those that faculty desire and/or need to pursue in order to be professionally successful." What is meant by the word "disconnections?"
A: "Disconnections" refers to misalignments between systems or processes that ought to work in synch. We are being asked to identify any such misalignments between current faculty activities - their roles -- and those activities that should be pursued to maximize one's professional success, which bears on rewards.

Q: Is the Task Force a policy-making body?
A: No. We are charged with collecting data and information, and then studying and recommending a model(s) for faculty effort assignment.

Q: Faculty salary is one form of faculty reward. Will the Task Force undertake an examination of salary inequities and make recommendations about faculty salaries?
A: No, we will not. As described in our charge, the Task Force's objective is to characterize faculty roles and make suggestions about how to align those roles better with Georgia Southern's existing reward system. Our charge does not extend to an examination of the reward system or recommendations for changing that system.

Q: I have heard the phrase "differentiated faculty workload" mentioned in relation to this task force. What does that term mean?
A: Differentiated (sometimes referred to as "individualized") faculty workload is one approach used in making faculty effort assignments. The underlying premise is that faculty members are not all alike, but differ in terms of their professional interests and strengths. Differentiation of workload allows effort assignments that are customized to reflect each individual's talents and desires; an analogous phrase might be "individualized faculty workload." A commonly used procedure for making differentiated workload assignments is for a faculty member to work with his or her chair to reconcile individual workload preferences with the unit's overall workload needs. In this way, the workload assignments of faculty members within a unit can be customized and still permit the unit to meet its teaching, scholarly, service, and administrative obligations. For example, a faculty member who wishes to undertake a significant service project might request an effort allocation of teaching = 50%, service = 30%, and scholarship/creative activity = 20%, while another faculty member in the unit may seek an effort allocation of teaching = 60%, service = 20%, and scholarship/ creative activity = 20%. Differentiation supports these kinds of flexible load assignments.

Q: I wish to participate in the faculty roles and rewards initiative. What are my avenues for doing so?
A: We strongly encourage faculty involvement in this process. Communication opportunities include the task force's website, which contains an electronic feedback form, as well as our charge, composition and contact information, and a summary of our meetings' action and discussion items. A portion of the November 12 Academic Affairs Forum was dedicated to the initiative. We expect to have other such opportunities for exchange throughout the year. Part of our charge includes conducting a faculty assignment survey; we are in the process of developing survey instruments, and we encourage faculty members to complete the instruments when they are available.