work_assign

Departmental Faculty Work Assignments
Including "New or Additional" Work
for Temporary Faculty

August 2007

Lecturer Appointments and Work Assignments

This information sheet provides an overview of basic principles and practices of hiring and assigning work to lecturers (“temporary faculty”) in the CSU.    It looks broadly at issues relevant to all departments/programs that hire temporary faculty rather than focusing on special cases or particular challenges.  Lecturer hiring does not lend itself to “one size fits all” solutions.  Chairs and directors should not hesitate to consult James P. Czaja, Director of Employee Relations, Employment, and Professional Development at (415) 405-3663 about their criteria and procedures. 

Kinds of Appointments

Conditional:    The appointments of part-time lecturers (less than 1.0) are contingent upon factors such as budget, enrollment and any other factors listed in the appointment letter and the faculty Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).   Classes taught by part-time faculty may be cancelled at any time prior to the third class meeting. If a class is cancelled, the lecturer must be paid for class sessions taught.  Some part-time lecturers have primary work assignments that include non-teaching responsibilities [Article 12.5].

Unconditional:    The appointments of full-time lecturers (1.0) are not subject to changes in budget or enrollment.  Once appointed, full-time lecturers have a right to a full time work assignment for the duration of the appointment regardless of budget or enrollment; their assignment may include teaching and other responsibilities.  Full-time coaching faculty employees may be appointed conditionally [Article 12.6]. 

Timebase

A “timebase” reflects the number of units a faculty member is assigned.  A full time workload for any faculty member consists of 15 units, so each 3-unit class is one-fifth of a full assignment - denoted as .20; two 3-unit classes, forty percent of a full load, are spoken of as a .40 timebase.  When a lecturer in an Academic Year classification is hired at a time-base of .40 or higher for one semester in the academic year, s/he is eligible for health, dental, vision, long term disability and life insurance benefits.  Enrollment in the PST retirement plan is required unless one qualifies for membership in the CalPERS retirement system. CalPERS membership/enrollment eligibility requires a half-time appointment (.50) or more for 3 consecutive semesters.  Upon the third semester membership in CalPERS is required.  Once you are a member of CalPERS, you remain a member even if the timebase drops below half time (.50).
 
Careful Consideration

This phrase from the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) refers to the process a program director or department chair should use when deciding whether or not to appoint, or offer work (usually classes) to, a lecturer who has taught previously in a department or program for one semester or more [12.7]. A program or department hiring committee may be used, however, when this occurs, the chair or program director is the final decision making authority.

These decisions must be based upon a defensible rationale and upon the information in the lecturer’s Personnel Action File (PAF), which is housed in Faculty Personnel and Human Resources Information Systems (New ADM 252).  The CBA indicates that departments/programs must review the PAF before deciding whom to appoint.  The decision-making process must demonstrate “reasoned judgment” based upon information in the PAF, such as evaluations, records showing the number of times a course or related course(s) has been taught, and qualifications to teach course material as documented in the lecturer’s curriculum vitae (education, relevant work experience, scholarship, etc.).  The PAF contains a register for the chair, hiring committee member, or designee member to sign and date each time it is reviewed.

Careful consideration procedure/process

  • Comply with the CBA and Department, College, and/or other University policies and procedures
  • Apply consistently and uniformly in reviewing lecturers’ qualifications
  • Base decisions upon criteria listed on the vacancy announcement, if any [Article 12.27] and information available in the PAF
  • Document the rationale that is used (selection criteria) in writing (see number 3 below)
  • Maintain a list of lecturers who have been evaluated by the department - include the courses previously taught in the department [Article 12.8]

 

Recommendations for providing careful consideration

  • Well, publicize application procedures (see “Application for Subsequent Appointment” section of this document) for new and returning faculty, that required University forms are made available, and that the process, including submission deadlines, is clearly described in a timely way.
  • Closely review the applications of all faculty, even if they are well known to the department to ensure that all relevant information that is submitted/updated is included in the decision-making process
  • Develop a written rationale (selection criteria) for course assignments that are based upon the information contained within the PAF - for example, prior experience teaching the course, student/peer evaluations, professional experience.
  • The Chair and/or Director, a representative of the hiring committee, or designee, signs, and dates the PAF in Human Resources to document that they provided careful consideration [Article 11.9].
  • Verify with the departmental coordinator that all recent documents that have been generated by the department (e.g., evaluations) and received from the lecturer (e.g. Curriculum Vita) are placed in the PAF, that the PAF is up to date prior to the review for careful consideration.  It is especially important to be able to verify this has occurred if careful consideration of all lectures will result in one or more lecturer appointments below the timebase to which an entitlement has been established. 
  • Consistently apply the selection criteria, documenting the rationale for assignment/non-assignment of courses.

Entitlement

“Entitlement” is a term that derives from the “similar assignment” language of the CBA [Article 12.3], but the term itself has not defined agreement or any controlling document. It refers to the total timebase a lecturer has a right to be assigned if courses are available that the lecturer is qualified to teach after careful consideration has been given.

  • One Year Appointments:  Lecturers who have taught consecutively during fall and spring or spring and summer semesters in the previous academic year should receive one-year appointments based upon the total timebase of the courses they taught in the same department during that year.  For example, if the lecturer taught .40 in fall and .40 in spring, the lecturer has a total entitlement of .80  for the following academic year for courses that the lecturer is qualified to teach (see “careful consideration’). The program can distribute the entitlement over fall and spring according to its instructional needs.  Either consecutive fall and spring, or spring and summer, semesters can be used to establish an entitlement for the subsequent academic year.   (See the “Summer Session” section below for further detail about the relationship between summer classes and entitlement).

 

  • Three Year Appointments:    After a lecturer has been appointed for one semester or more in six consecutive years within the same department, s/he has the right to a three year appointment effective with the seventh year.  Once a lecturer has acquired a three-year appointment, if his/her performance is satisfactory (Article 12.13), that lecturer is entitled to another three-year appointment. Timebases may change during a three-year period, contingent upon program needs, budget, and enrollment.  If no work is available to support a subsequent three-year appointment, the department is expected to place the lecturer’s name on a departmental reemployment list [Article 38.48].

The timebase of a lecturer’s first three year entitlement is based upon his/her total timebase in the sixth year of employment.  The timebase for the next three year appointment is established by the timebase taught in the third year of the expiring three year appointment. The total timebase in the third year is determined as described under the “One Year Appointments” section above. Academic Personnel and HRIS issue a letter to Dean and Directors that provides entitlement data at the beginning of the academic year (fall semester).

Factors that bear on whether a department/program can meet lecturer entitlements include classes the program will schedule (offer), teaching schedules of permanent faculty, enrollments, and budget.

Guidance concerning entitlement

  • Review courses assigned to lecturers in the prior semester, and/or the prior three semesters (if applicable) to determine existing entitlements (i.e., ascertain each lecturer’s timebase).  This information should be maintained in the College and is also available through Academic Personnel and HRIS (Admin Building). 

 

  • Do not count units taught in Extended Education courses when calculating entitlements.
  • Document an entitled lecturer’s decision to decline work and provide a copy to Academic Personnel for inclusion in the PAF.

 

  • Issue letters to lectures who’s entitlements will not be met in the current semester.
  • Assign new or additional work only after you have met existing entitlements and/or offered the work to an entitled lecturer (or lecturers). 

 

Summer Session

The 2007-2010 Agreement clarifies the impact of the summer Session (see Article 12, Provision 12.3, 12.12, and Appendix F).  On a semester campus such as SFSU, summer session does not increase the entitlement of a lecturer who taught consecutive fall and spring semesters and whose entitlement has been met; for this lecturer, summer classes are extra work for extra pay.   Summer session classes may increase a lecturer’s entitlement (three years or one year) only when a faculty member who did not teach in the fall uses the spring and summer sessions to meet the two consecutive semesters taught within the same academic year requirement.  Any entitled lecturer whose time-base was not met in the preceding fall and spring must be offered summer classes (over other lecturers without an entitlement or whose entitlement was met) if the lecturer is qualified to teach them.    To qualify for meeting an entitlement, summer courses must be offered through the general fund; Extended Learning courses do not qualify for these purposes. Summer courses also count toward Service Salary Increase (SSI) eligibility.

Order for Assigning Work and Preference for Work

The following is the order in which faculty should be offered classes in a department (see Article 12.29 subparagraphs “a” and “b”) in the following sequence:

a.   Tenured and Tenure Track Faculty
b.  Administrators, Teaching Associates, and Volunteers
c.  Full-time lecturers with Three Year Appointments
e.   Full-time lectures with One Year Appointments
f.    Part-time lecturers with a three-year entitlement
g.   Part-time lecturers with a one-year entitlement
h.  All temporary faculty employed in the prior academic year
i.    Lastly, offer available work to any other (outside) qualified candidate(s)

Lecturers who have either a three-year entitlement or a one-year entitlement receive priority, in that order, for being assigned new work as it becomes available. 

Recall List for 3 Year Lecturers Whose Entitlements Are Not Met

If at the end of a three-year appointment, work does not exist to support a subsequent 3-year appointment, the department is to place the lecture on a reemployment list for up to three years [Article 38.48].  The lecturer must notify the department by July 1st of each year of his/her interest and availability for course assignments. Failure to notify will result in removal from the list/removal from consideration for courses.  

New or Additional Work

Lecturers who have either an unmet three-year entitlement or a one-year entitlement must receive priority, in that order, for being assigned new work as it becomes available.

 

Application for Subsequent Appointment

Each department is to distribute the appropriate application form (Application for Temporary Faculty Employment, FAO 112, or Application for Subsequent Temporary Faculty Appointment, FAO 113) to temporary faculty each spring.  Temporary faculty should request courses they wish to teach and provide professional qualifications, list courses taught in the department, those which they are qualified to teach and equivalent course taught at other CSU campuses. It is the responsibility of the faculty member to provide evidence that s/he satisfactorily taught a given course at another CSU campus.

Evaluation                

The CBA contains language about the evaluation of lecturer faculty.  The Temporary Faculty Evaluation Form, FAO 114, is provided for this purpose. Full-time lecturers “must be evaluated in accordance with the periodic evaluation procedure” [Article15.23].  Any lecturers appointed for two or more semesters must also receive full periodic evaluations.  Part-time lecturers “shall be evaluated in accordance with the periodic evaluation procedure” including but not limited to student evaluations and “an opportunity for peer input” [Article 15.24].

Lecturers with three-year appointments “shall be evaluated at least once” during the span of the appointment.  All lecturers must be provided with a copy of the written record of their evaluation before it is placed in the PAF.

As with permanent faculty, lecturers must be clearly informed about evaluation criteria “no later than 14 days after the first day of the academic term.”  They must be notified “at least five (5) days” before any classroom observation, have student evaluations in “a minimum of two (2) classes annually” [Article 15.15], and receive written rationales for any recommendations made,

Classes in which student evaluations are to be done are normally determined in consultation with a faculty member unless the administration and department faculty agree that all classes of all faculty will be subject to student evaluation [Article 15.15].

REMINDER:

Department chairs and program directors are strongly advised to familiarize themselves with the Collective Bargaining Agreement and campus policies relevant to temporary faculty.  Because these documents, and the procedures by which they are realized, are subject to change over time, chairs/directors are invited to consult James Czaja, Director of Employee Relations, Employment, and Professional Development, about any questions they may have or about complex situations requiring individual analysis.

While the information contained here is intended to be helpful, it is not a definitive or authoritative guide to decision making in all situations.   As changes emerge, in the form of arbitrators’ decisions, directives from CSU, or other authoritative guidance, they will take precedence over the information presented in this document.  Any Chair or Director who has questions should unhesitatingly consult with his/her Dean and, as prudent or necessary, Human Resources for help with specific cases.