Within the past 40 years, faculty class loads at Ohio University have decreased because of the demand placed on faculty research in an effort to stay competitive with other universities.
In the 1960s, the standard class load for faculty was 12 hours a semester, said economics professor Richard Vedder, who has taught at OU for more than 40 years.
In the mid-'60s, the class loads decreased to nine hours a semester, he said. But when OU switched from semesters to quarters and shifted from an almost exclusively undergraduate school to providing doctorate and graduate degrees in the late '60s, faculty pushed to get its class loads decreased to focus on research.
Since 1994, on average, university departments have maintained the same class-load requirements for faculty, but the amount of time they spend on research has continued to increase, said Martin Tuck, associate provost for academic affairs.
Faculty workloads are broken down into three components: teaching, service and research. There is no set amount of time that faculty must devote to service and research.
On average, faculty members teach two to three classes a quarter (or the same class with two sections), but it can vary, said Tuck. Group I faculty, who are tenure track and usually full-time professors, might teach fewer classes because research and teaching are compared evenly in their evaluations. But group II professors are part-time and focus less on research, which enables them to teach more classes.
I think students a lot of time will look at research and teaching as competition with one another. 'Well this faculty member is focusing all of his time on research and neglecting his students' ... Tuck said. If faculty within the university were not focusing on research than the undergrads wouldn't have those types of opportunities to work in laboratories or do research projects or go on study abroad. And in my opinion those are incredibly valuable opportunities.
Research keeps professors current in their field and lets them bring new and fresh ideas and components into the classroom, which ultimately benefits the students, Tuck said.
Vedder said what the university needs is balance. If the (class) loads get lower
who is going to teach the students?
