Arts and Sciences Policy Regarding Overload Teaching by Faculty
The College of Arts and Sciences has had a practice for some time of approving no more than one additional course per semester for our instructors and lecturers over and above the equivalent of a full-time appointment. For tenured and tenure-track faculty, one additional course per semester also applies. This includes courses taught through Continuing Education, courses taught outside the College of Arts and Sciences, and those taught on other CU campuses.
A committee comprised of administrators and faculty from the College, Continuing Education, Honors, Program for Writing and Rhetoric, and two Residential Academic Programs discussed the issue of overload teaching recently and reconfirmed the value of this policy. The philosophy behind this policy is to ensure that quality in the contracted courses remains high and that faculty have time to remain current in both their subject area and technology, adequate time to meet with individual students, and time to grade substantive written work.
We now are including the following statement as a condition of employment in our "overload" and "additional" job letters of offer:
"I certify that this additional teaching appointment does not exceed the limit on overload teaching, which allows no more than one additional course per semester over and above the equivalent of a full-time appointment. This overload limit includes all courses taught at the University of Colorado, including Continuing Education and other CU campuses."
With regards to Summer Session teaching, approval normally will be granted to teach no more than one course during any single Summer Session. Concurrent course teaching in overlapping Summer Session terms will be discouraged. In those cases in which a faculty member is teaching a one-credit hour course (such as a field study, seminar or lab course) the faculty member may elect to teach up to three, one-credit hour courses during a Summer Session term.
The only exception to this policy is self-paced courses taught through Continuing Education, which will not count against overload teaching limits. If you believe that an exception may be pertinent, an appeal may be sent to the Arts and Sciences Dea's Office.
The Additional Job and Overload templates are available on the web at: http://www.colorado.edu/ArtsSciences/facultystaff/administration/templates.html.
We ask for your assistance in adhering to this policy for all Arts and Sciences faculty you may hire.
