Tenured Faculty Workload Policy Review

Overview

This page is intended to help departments understand the COLA process and related policies for the college's tenured faculty workload review. Each college/school and department is required to establish a faculty workload policy, per Regents' Rules and Regulations Rule 31006 , and Texas Education Code Section 51.402 .

Background

The University has had a variety of methods for tracking faculty workloads over time to meet ongoing and evolving State of Texas and UT System requirements. For example, in the early 2000’s departments were responsible for tracking and reporting Teaching Load Credits (TLCs) for this purpose. In 2006, the Provost’s Office took over the task of calculating and reporting TLCs on behalf of UT but also developed new means of working with CSUs to meet institutional workload requirements.

In 2020-21, the Provost’s Office asked CSUs to review and update their college-level workload policies. COLA leaders considered the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as empirical experience with our previous college policy, implemented Fall 2016. The new, updated policy became effective Fall 2022, and intends to communicate transparent college-wide expectations of tenured faculty; to encourage tenured faculty to contribute their individual strengths to the betterment of the college’s instructional and scholarly programs; to support tenured faculty seeking promotion to Professor; and to allow flexibility and individualized paths to success. The policy remains committed to the high research standards expected and required of a R1 public research university while allowing greater room for customized plans that help faculty progress their research trajectories, and creates accountability for faculty to continue contributing to the university’s mission when they are unable to sustain a research agenda as expected by university and disciplinary norms. The new policy also simplifies administrative processes by embedding reviews within the existing structure of comprehensive periodic reviews.

Relevant Definitions:

TTT: Tenured and tenure-track faculty

Workload: how a faculty member’s time and effort is meant to be distributed across the three broad areas of faculty responsibility: teaching, research, and service.

Teaching Load: the amount of organized instruction a faculty member is expected to provide during a standard academic year of full-time employment. Although the college’s teaching expectations are technically based on a range of average numbers of contact hours, the teaching load itself is usually expressed as a ratio of two numbers, such as “2:2”, meaning that the faculty member is expected to teach 2 courses averaging 3 contact hours each, in each of the long semesters (Fall and Spring).

FWP: COLA Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty Workload Policy; more specifically, related to the review aspect of the policy.

Process:

Effective Sept. 1, 2022, this process is now mostly embedded within the Comprehensive Periodic Review of Tenured Faculty (CPR) process. (See CPR page for the overall process and related information).

Deadline: as part of a CPR, follows the CPR deadline(s); Feb. 1, for follow-up reports and updates, unless otherwise specified.

The following steps assume that the CPR process for a given faculty member is already underway; the process has been broken out according to tenured faculty rank, below:

Associate Professors:

Department evaluation finds Faculty is on-track for timely promotion to Full:
1. Document in CPR written report
2. Provide the anticipated year Faculty will go up for promotion
3. Provide notes if going up for promotion is contingent upon any specific achievement already underway (e.g., book in press, waiting to come out)
Department evaluation finds Faculty is not on-track for promotion review before the next CPR:
1. Document in CPR written report; if department has rated Faculty “meets expectations” overall, department shall provide the “rationale as it related to the norms and expectations of their discipline” per COLA FWP policy
2. Work with Faculty to develop a promotion plan; departments may choose to use or modify this promotion plan template if useful (not required)
3. A completed plan does not need to be submitted with the CPR; however, the department shall document, as part of the CPR report, the status of that collaboration and any agreed-upon goals or proposed actions, as relevant (e.g., department has begun discussion with Faculty on how to make forward progress; still working on a set of goals and deadlines, but Faculty mentioned they have a conference presentation this Spring that they intend to develop into an article to submit to peer-reviewed journal by Fall)
4. Department are expected to keep the promotion plan (or equivalent) on file, as well as related records, and be prepared to provide them upon request as well as reference the trajectory in subsequent reviews; Faculty should also maintain copies of these records.

Department evaluation finds Faculty ready to go up for promotion to Full in the subsequent Fall semester:
1. Document in CPR written report;
2. If Faculty goes up that Fall and is successful, no further action until first CPR in rank as Professor.
3. If Faculty does not go up that Fall as intended, an action plan must be submitted by February 1 of that year. (e.g., planned to go up Fall 2025 but did not; action plan due February 1, 2026)
4. If Faculty goes up that Fall but is unsuccessful, an action plan must be submitted by February 1 of following year. (e.g., went up Fall 2025 but unsuccessful; action plan due February 1, 2027)
5. Deans review action plans for final approval and may request adjustments; final approved plans are effective the subsequent academic year (August 16).
Department evaluation and discussion with Faculty determines that Faculty would prefer an adjusted workload rather than pursue promotion to Full:
1. Document details of adjusted workload in CPR written report;
2. Deans review proposed workload for final approval and may request adjustments; final approved plans are effective the subsequent academic year (August 16).
3. Faculty retain the right to pursue promotion to Full, but may not resume research-intensive workload until after successful promotion to Full.
If department evaluation finds Faculty not ready to go up for promotion to Full in the subsequent Fall semester:
1. Document in CPR written report;
2. Work with Faculty to develop an action plan and attach to CPR report; required components for the action plan are listed in the COLA workload policy; departments may choose to use or modify this action plan template (or promotion plan template), if useful (not required).
3. Deans review action plan for final approval and may request adjustments; final approved plans are effective the subsequent academic year (August 16).

Professors:

Department evaluation determines Faculty meet expectations of research-intensive faculty:
1. Document in CPR written report
Department evaluation determines Faculty does not meet expectations of research-intensive faculty:
1. Document in CPR written report
2. Department works with Faculty to reach greater productivity; or Faculty may request an adjusted/non-research-intensive workload

Department evaluation determines Faculty meet expectations of research-intensive faculty:
1. Document in CPR written report
Department evaluation determines Faculty does not meet expectations of research-intensive faculty:
1. Document in CPR written report
2. Works with Faculty to develop an adjusted workload or an action plan and attach to CPR report (if workload, can be included within report); required components for the action plan are listed in the COLA workload policy; departments may choose to use or modify this action plan template (or promotion plan template), if useful (not required).
3. Deans review adjusted workload or action plan for final approval and may request adjustments; final approved plans are effective the subsequent academic year (August 16).
4. If Faculty workload is adjusted, Faculty may request resumption of research-intensive workload at any time based on evidence of increased research productivity; requests must be reviewed by Department BC/EC and Chair, and submitted to Dean’s Office for final review and approval.

Faculty Member with an Active Development Plan (Any Rank):

Approved action plans typically specify performance benchmarks and deadlines for specific requirements to be met. Unless otherwise communicated by the Dean’s Office or detailed in the plan itself, updates on active development plans are due to the Dean’s Office by Feb. 1.
1. Example (Disclaimer: this example is imperfect and is only offered to illustrate the logic of how one would know when to report FWP plan updates and an idea of what that might look like):
  1. An active plan includes the following: “Book manuscript to be submitted to press by June 1, 2025. If manuscript is submitted on or before deadline, will begin preparations to seek promotion to Full in Fall 2026; if not, will teach an additional course in Spring 2026 (to be determined before August 15, 2025, in collaboration with Chair and Department).”
  2. The department sends an email update before February 1, 2026 reporting that, “because the manuscript was not submitted before the deadline, the faculty member is teaching an additional section of [a course] in Spring 2026. However, since the manuscript was submitted on 10/13/25 (please see attached), the department does not intend to increase Prof. X’s AY26-27 teaching responsibilities at this time…”.
    1. In this example, the faculty member’s plan included a specific action [submitting the book manuscript] by a specific date [6/1/25]. The Dean’s Office would expect an update before the following February 1 [2026] reporting the results [whether or not the manuscript was submitted] and additional actions taken [faculty member teaching an additional course in Spring 2026], along with any other relevant information.
More details about Submitting Updates:
1. From: Department Chair, either via or cc:ing Dept’s Faculty-HR Staff Contact
2. To: Jennifer Nailos and Ann Kelble (COLA staff)
3. Please Attach: faculty member’s updated CV (along with any other supporting documentation, as appropriate).
You should receive:
1. Initially: an acknowledgement of receipt.
  1. There may be follow-up questions.
2. By mid-Spring (March/April), aligned with the larger CPR and FWP processes, a response from the Dean(s). (This will vary depending on the individual circumstances.)

Related Policies:

Revised COLA Tenured Faculty Workload Policy (effective 9/1/2022)

HOP 2-2170: Faculty Workload and Reporting Requirements

Regents' Rules and Regulations, Rule 31006

Regents' Rules and Regulations, Rule 31001

Texas Education Code, Section 51.402

Comprehensive Periodic Review of Tenured Faculty