On occasion, I am asked to describe the typical faculty member’s workload at my institution. Although this may seem like a simple request, I know of very few academic units that track such a measure. I have always tried to explain the process by referring to the traditional view of scholarship which includes activities related to teaching, research, and service. Of course, one would expect much variability when comparing the amount of time an individual faculty member would spend on these three activities. Still, an IR professional may want to approximate this number for a variety of reasons to include collective bargaining, resource allocation, or course release policy development.
In my case, I took advantage of the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE) to approximate these time commitments at the institutional level. At our institution, approximately 400 full time faculty members were asked to complete the survey. Overall, 183 (47%) individuals responded to the survey. The area of the FSSE....
