Our next steps in “Advancing Equity in Faculty Workload and Rewards” acknowledges both the long existing challenges with recognizing all the work that faculty do that is essential to our public good mission and the specific workload equity challenges around service and teaching across rank and series. Equity in faculty evaluation and career advancement is an area that requires greater institutional attention. Additionally, as we work to recruit, retain, and ensure the success of a diverse faculty, our ability to count what matters–not simply what is easier to count–is essential to advancing equity in faculty workload and rewards.
The pandemic highlighted inequities present in academia and beyond, illuminating how our systems can perpetuate inequity. We must address the structures that underlie inequity in evaluation and career advancement. In that spirit, we are undertaking the important task of building capacity across DU to reward important work that is often not as rigorously and robustly valued as scholarship and grant activity. We now have an opportunity to reexamine how faculty work is recognized and rewarded in, tenure, promotion and reappointment decisions, annual reviews, merit, and the distribution of day-to-day workloads in departments and programs.
This initiative originates in the spirit of shared governance. The Senate has been a vital thought leader, creating important committees & task forces to address these issues from an institutional perspective. As these committees do the important and slow moving thoughtwork, informed by research and national best practices, the Provost’s Office through the VPFA has partnered both on the committee work and programming. This embodies an ecosystem approach to institutional change–we need to interrogate everyday practices such as “hallway asks’ ‘ for service work that can disproportionately burden certain faculty, and exclude others. We continue to offer training for chairs and directors, associate deans, deans, academic units, and departments to ensure we are moving forward in practice and piloting work to continue to move the dial on equity in faculty workloads and rewards.
This website further articulates the values, processes, and work of these “next steps” and offers ways for faculty to get involved in related initiatives.
Teaching Excellence
The Senate, in partnership with the Vice Provost of Faculty Affairs, seeks to improve DU’s methods of course evaluation and teaching review for the purpose of annual reviews, promotion, and reappointment.
Workload Equity
The Office of the Provost, the Vice Provost of Faculty Affairs, and Faculty Senate are partnering to strengthen equity outcomes within and across departments and units.
Covid-19 Support
The COVID Accommodations Senate Task Force (also referred to as the Committee on Changes to the APT for the Effects of COVID-19) is working on policy changes changes related to the pandemic.
*Policies, Procedures and Practices (Annual Review, Tenure, Promotion and Reappointment)
† Impacts of Research, Scholarship and Creative Works; Teaching; and Service
