What We Do:
The Daily Work of UNC Faculty

 

Dear President Bowles:

 

Here, as you requested, are 16 faculty accounts of a “typical” day or week in their lives. These faculty, from each of the 16 campuses and representing a multitude of disciplines, volunteered to tell you about their work lives. Those lives are both ordinary and extraordinary. It has been a wonderful and elucidating exercise for us on the Faculty Assembly to learn about the work of our fellow faculty – from Elizabeth City to Wilmington, from Raleigh to Boone.

 

We know that numbers and studies are also necessary, and we have plenty of those. But they don’t always tell the whole story. These faculty accounts help illustrate the numbers. What you’ll discover, as we did, is that there’s no such thing as a typical work day for a faculty member. Well, the days do tend to be long, and involve, for many, a great deal of early-morning emailing and late-night emailing. There are plenty of night classes and events – and lots of weekend grading. But these accounts are as diverse as our campuses and the departments within those campuses, and as diverse as our faculty.

 

What our faculty do share across all campuses is clear: they work hard and they love their work. In that, North Carolina faculty don’t differ much from faculty across the country. A major U.S. Department of Education study, released in December, showed that the reported typical work week for a four-year college faculty member is 53 hours a week. Our small UNC-system survey on workload, which we created in March specifically for your information, shows that respondents from a variety of faculty senates and the UNC Faculty Assembly report working [53 hours does not seem to constitute a range; can we include a range or make the language clearer? I know this is not a mean but it also is not a range within a range of 53 hours.] You can find a summary of that study within these pages.

 

Just for comparison, a National Science Foundation report, also published in December, indicates that scientists and engineers in education work harder than those in industry and much harder than their counterparts in the government. The NSF study collected self-reported responses from more than 500,000 scientists and engineers in education, industry, and government. Scientists and engineers who were educators reported a 50.59-hour average work week. Scientists and engineers in industry jobs worked 47.61 hours in an average week, and government workers clocked out at 45.17 hours a week.

 

But what you’ll discover, as you read through these pages, is that our faculty don’t think about clocking out. They’re too busy working. We hope you’ll read, enjoy, and learn.

 

And we again want to warmly welcome you as the new President of The University of North Carolina.

 

The Executive Committee

The University of North Carolina Faculty Assembly

 

President Erskine Bowles requested this spring that the UNC Faculty Assembly provide information on the nature of faculty work and typical patterns of work within the UNC System, so that he could better understand and explain faculty work to policy makers and members of the public. In response, the Assembly developed a survey to gather preliminary information from faculty who are members of the Assembly, with modest supplementation from faculty senates on three campuses (UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Wilmington, and Western Carolina University). The study in some respects indicates patterns similar to those reported nationwide, though it is not a statistically representative sample. It appears that faculty involved in the Assembly and faculty senates devote approximately 53 hours a week to a variety of professional responsibilities. The study did not request precise hours worked in a specific week but rather requested ranges of hours worked on major job responsibilities, including the following:

 

Preparing to Teach. Nearly all faculty report spending significant time each week – about 12 hours – preparing class lectures, developing handouts or other written materials, keeping up with their field, and working with other faculty members on curriculum. For many, time is also spent on instruction initiatives, development of information technology or teaching-related skills, and design of new courses to keep their teaching relevant and updated.

 

Types of Teaching. Faculty members are involved in many sorts of teaching – from 100 students in a lecture hall, to lab oversight, to summer field work involving just a few students. Those responsible for graduate students generally teach in smaller, more intensive settings, and tutorials. Those teaching professional students may team-teach, oversee work in laboratories, teach larger classes or seminars, and teach in tutorial settings, depending on their field.

 

Students Taught.  Across the board, UNC faculty report significant responsibilities in teaching undergraduates and graduate and professional students. Instruction of continuing education students, distance education students, and library patrons are also an important part of teaching responsibilities for many faculty and librarians. Faculty respondents indicated that direct classroom teaching hours vary, but is in the range of six hours a week. As noted below, that is only the beginning of student/faculty interaction.

 

Informal Contact with Students.  Faculty respondents report significant time spent working with students individually, answering email, mentoring, holding office hours, writing reference letters, or assisting in student recruitment efforts. Respondents reported spending as much time each week meeting with students or emailing with students as they do teaching – in many cases involving around nine hours of contact.

 

Assessment.  Faculty are also responsible for designing class assignments or exams, grading such assignments, working with departmental assessment or accreditation, and working with colleagues outside the department. Such assessment activities often take considerable time and are becoming an ever-more-critical component of higher education. Faculty respondents reported spending approximately five hours a week on assessment, though the time spent varies in part by the type of course and the rhythm of the semester.

 

Continuing and Distance Education. A substantial number of faculty members (about a third) report involvement in continuing education, extension, or other non-traditional educational programming. Interest and involvement in distance education varied from campus to campus, but perhaps a quarter of responding faculty indicated interest or active involvement in this area.

 

Research Emphasis and Activities. Nearly all responding faculty are interested and dedicated to research, but lengthy hours spent each week on research was dependent on being on a campus or in a department where research plays a central role and external research funds are most available. Many faculty respondents reported keeping up with their fields, planning research, consulting with co-researchers, writing, presenting and disseminating work. Respondents at major research universities are generally more significantly involved in externally funded research, peer-review of research, and working with graduate students on research. Time spent varies, but about 12 hours a week was the middle range of all respondents.

 

Service to the Academy and the Public. Many faculty respondents report significant time spent on service to the academy (committee work on campus, involvement in professional societies, mentoring of colleagues, and peer review of others’ work). They also report significant service to North Carolina citizens and beyond, often through presentations to citizen or non-profit groups, research on topics likely to have impact on public issues, participation on boards and commissions where they contribute their professional expertise, and consultation with government, non-profit or business organizations. While time spent varied, many respondents indicated that they spent nine hours a week on such activities.