Instructor Task Force

Task force submits its final report 

The college is posting for your comment the report of the Instructor Task Force. We welcome your comments on this important report and its many recommendations.

Please use this webform to submit your comments. Implementation will take place over the coming months, guided by an implementation committee and college-wide discussions.

On March 20, 2019, James W.C. White, interim dean of the college, thanked the task force members for their work so far and for agreeing to serve on as members of the implementation committee. He added:

"Our campus wide visioning efforts are beginning to bear fruit. Instructors are an essential part of a modern Research 1 university such as ours, a reality that will continue into the future. Changing the culture and practice of how we incorporate instructors into the faculty of CU Boulder is an important step as we move towards being the best CU we can be now and in the future."

Background

In the past five decades, the teaching load at the University of Colorado Boulder has been increasingly borne by instructors instead of tenured or tenure-track faculty, and the College of Arts and Sciences has formed a task force to recommend best practices. 

The college’s ad hoc Instructor Task Force was jointly formed by Interim Dean James W.C. White and Stephen Mojzsis, chair of the Arts and Sciences Council, the college’s faculty shared-governance body. 

The Instructor Task Force held four town halls during November 2018. The group sought faculty input to help craft the final version of its recommendations.

The task force conducted a “long overdue” examination of the role of A&S instructors, policies and workloads affecting their service, and the climate in which instructors work, White and Mojzsis stated.

“Rostered instructors and senior instructors on multi-year contracts now join tenure-stream faculty as the ‘core faculty’ of the College of Arts and Sciences, and of the campus as a whole,” the task force’s charge states, adding: “Their responsibilities and professional activities surely differ, as they should. But both groups contribute in vital ways to our undergraduate mission, and to the success of our students.”

The task force is co-chaired by Jenny Knight, associate professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, and Rolf Norgaard, teaching professor and associate director of the Program for Writing and Rhetoric. 

Knight and Norgaard characterized the task force as a “timely opportunity to think strategically and intentionally about the roles of and policies concerning instructors in what is our larger shared mission.” 

The task force held its first meeting on June 8 and resolved to seek input from the faculty. The group is charged with completing a report with findings and recommendations by February 2019. 

The task force will solicit information and diverse views, and it will announce town halls or similar fora in the coming months. Meanwhile, please contact the task force co-chairs, Knight and Norgaard, with any questions. Information about the task force, its meetings and progress can be found at this web page. 

How we are proceeding

• Open-ended Listening Conversations with instructors: September-Early October
• Conversations at divisional meetings with chairs and directors: Mid-Late October
• Focused Town Halls, with areas of concern/provisional recommendations identified: Late October-mid November
• Clarifying/developing recommendations: Mid-November - December
• Drafting report: January-Early February
• Informal Comment – circulation of draft: February
• Final Report Delivered: End of February
• Formal ASC / Dean Consideration (Also, circulation to BFA, Council of Deans, etc.): March-April

Core Commitments

• What is in the interest of the College, its students, and all of its faculty?
• How are instructor contributions aligned with A&S Strategic Plan, AF, FofE, Inclusion?
• How can we make the teaching and service work of instructors visible and sustainable?
• What kind of teaching faculty does an R1 deserve?
• How can we achieve T1 and the R1?

Likely Areas of Interest for our Recommendations

• Changing culture: making instructors visible; participation/voting rights; contract issues
• Clarity and communication of policy/resources in A&S and between Regent Hall/A&S
• Teaching and Service (3/3-4/4, %time, course equivalency, prof. dev., currency in field)
• Compensation/compression, merit, bump to base at promotion
• Career Path (lecturers/IBOR 2.0, promotion through ranks, admin opportunities, etc.)

Task force membership

• Jenny Knight, MCDB, co-chair, jennifer.knight@colorado.edu 
• Rolf Norgaard, PWR, co-chair, rolf.norgaard@colorado.edu
• Janet Casagrand, IPHY
• Cathy Comstock, Farrand RAP
• Tammy Fredrickson, SLHS
• Steve Lamos, ENGL
• Mary Long, SPAN
• Adam Norris, APPM
• Ted Stark, THDN
• Eric Stade, MATH
• Glenda Walden, SOC