School of Law: Policy on Faculty Workload

Unit Policy

Title

School of Law: Policy on Faculty Workload

Introduction

Purpose

This Policy is intended to document requirements and expectations of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (“University”) School of Law (“SOL”) regarding workloads of SOL Faculty, as defined below. The Policy incorporates and reflects policies documented in the SOL’s Faculty Manual.

Scope

This Policy applies to all full-time faculty at the SOL, regardless of rank. SOL faculty include Law Library faculty, who have secondary faculty appointments at the SOL and often teach individual courses, but whose primary appointments are as professional librarians in the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library.

Part-time faculty, designated as adjunct faculty, are not subject to this Policy. Adjunct faculty only teach individual courses, generally one per year, and have no other workload expectations.

Faculty Obligation to Comply

SOL Faculty must familiarize themselves with and comply with the Policy.

Policy

Annual Workloads

Workloads by Faculty Type

For purposes of this Policy, the SOL’s faculty consists of (1) Tenured and Tenure-Track (“T/TT”) Faculty—some of whom are Clinical (“T/TT-C”) Faculty—and (2) Non-Tenure-Track (“NTT”), all of whom are Clinical Faculty and some of whom are Law Library Faculty.

  1. All T/TT Faculty have three workload categories: teaching, service, and scholarship/research.
  2. For T/TT Faculty who are not Clinical, the default workload distribution is:
    • 33.3% teaching, 33.3% service, and 33.3% scholarship/research.
  3. T/TT-C Faculty are Clinical and typically must teach more credit hours that other T/TT Faculty, and accordingly the default workload distribution is:
    •  40% teaching, 30% service, and 30% scholarship/research.
  4. NTT Faculty have two workload categories: teaching and service.
    • For NTT Faculty who are not Law Library Faculty, the default workload distribution is 67% teaching and 33% service.
    • For Law Library Faculty with teaching responsibilities, the default workload distribution is 30% teaching and 70% service.
  5. The SOL Dean has discretion to alter the annual workload distribution for each SOL Faculty member based on the member’s mutually agreed-upon special teaching, service, or scholarship/research duties. In particular, associate deans and center or institute directors such as the following have significant administrative workloads.
    • Associate Deans (three, each with a different workload and set of responsibilities);
    • Directors for the clinics, field placements, and the Writing and Learning Resources Center (“WLRC”); and
    • Center and institute directors.

The Dean authorizes for them deviations from the default workload allocation, typically reducing the affected member’s teaching load to compensate for the increased administrative service load of the directorship.

Annual Teaching Workloads

  1. Accreditation Framework. Standards 403 and 404 of the ABA Accreditation Standards govern the instructional role and other responsibilities of the SOL Faculty. The SOL complies with those Standards and adds to them as follows.
  2. Annual Teaching Timeframe: Fall and Spring Semesters. An annual teaching workload is based on two semesters: fall and spring within a July-through-June academic year. Although a small number of SOL Faculty teach during the SOL’s small summer session, that is separately compensated for overload activity.
  3. T/TT Faculty
    1. First, T/TT Faculty who are not also Clinical Faculty must teach 10 credit hours per two-semester academic year unless the SOL Dean has approved a different amount due to the faculty member’s special teaching, service, or scholarship/research duties. A typical annual teaching load for such T/TT (non-clinical) SOL Faculty member consists of:
      • A first-year foundational course of four credit hours, enrolling approximately 50–60 students. The first-year curriculum is mandatory for all students and consists of four-credit courses in Civil Procedure, Torts, Contracts, Criminal Law, Property, and Constitutional Law alongside a set of three-credit legal research and writing courses taught by NTT Faculty.
      • An upper-level course of three or four credit hours, covering an important field of law students are likely to encounter on the bar examination or that prepares them for practice specialization.
      • A seminar of three credit hours in one semester or the other, based on the SOL Faculty member’s area of expertise. Completion of a seminar helps students satisfy the SOL’s graduation requirement of four “Rigorous Writing Experience” credits in the upper-level curriculum.
    2. Second, T/TT-C Faculty (tenured or tenure-track and clinical) must teach 12 credit hours per academic year, predominately in clinical courses, per academic year unless the SOL Dean approves a different amount due the faculty member’s special teaching, service, or scholarship/research duties. For example, a small number of T/TT-C Faculty teach clinical courses while serving as a clinic director, center or institute director, or associate dean, and accordingly the Dean authorizes a reduction in the faculty member’s teaching load by one course.
  4. Clinical Faculty. All Clinical SOL Faculty, both T/TT-C and NTT, carry out a variety of teaching responsibilities, which generally fall into one of three categories: 
    1. Faculty who teach in the SOL’s 11 in-house law clinics. The clinics offer SOL students the opportunity to merge theory and practice, earn academic credit, and provide much-needed legal assistance to clients who lack access to legal resources. Students experience these clinics as experiential-learning courses in which students, supervised by a SOL Faculty member, help provide legal services to real clients pursuant to applicable rules of the North Carolina State Bar. Clinic credits count towards the six experiential credits each student must earn to graduate.
    2. Faculty who organize and supervise “field placements.” In field placements, also called externships, the SOL recruits and oversees practitioners, nonprofit legal agencies, judges, and public officials, and other “site hosts” to host and help supervise students to work without pay for a semester. Students receive academic credit for their hours of preparation, on-site work with hosts, and reflection. Field placement credits count towards the six experiential credits required to graduate. Clinical SOL Faculty supervise the students and hosting personnel.
    3. Faculty who teach in the SOL’s Writing and Learning Resources Center (WLRC) and Research, Reasoning, Writing, and Advocacy (RRWA) programs. All faculty in the SOL’s WLRC are NTT Clinical Faculty. Most teach in the RRWA curriculum: a required, year-long, six-credit set of first-year courses. The exception is the Director of Academic Excellence, who consults with other WLRC Faculty, teaches upper-level advanced skills and bar-examination preparation courses, assists the SOL Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in managing a Guided Enrollment Policy, and otherwise assists students whose academic performance indicates that they require additional guidance.
    4. The intensive RRWA courses train SOL students in researching and analyzing legal authorities and in writing and advocating orally, all important skills for success in law school and the legal profession. Some WLRC SOL Faculty also refine students’ skills in the areas covered by the first-year RRWA curriculum by teaching upper-level courses in research, writing, advocacy, and bar-examination preparation.

      Some WLRC SOL Faculty members also teach courses in the SOL’s upper-level curriculum. This typically does not change the number of credit hours the faculty member teaches unless the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs authorizes a one-credit reduction for intensive experiential or rigorous-writing courses.
  5. Deviations from Default Teaching Loads. On behalf of the SOL Dean, in light of each SOL Faculty member’s workload allocation, the SOL Associate Dean for Academic Affairs specifies how each member will satisfy their teaching obligations each year, taking into account the following:
    1. Research leaves,
    2. Course reductions for administrative duties,
    3. Course buyouts,
    4. Visits to other law schools,
    5. The SOL’s pressing curricular needs, and
    6. Any other relevant context.

Annual Scholarship/Research Workloads

  1. Only T/TT SOL Faculty, including those who are Clinical, are required and expected to conduct research and produce written scholarship.
  2. The SOL Faculty Manual describes in its promotion and tenure sections the scholarship requirements for all Tenure-Track SOL Faculty leading to the tenure decision. The SOL’s Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Associate Dean for Research, and the members of its Promotion and Tenure Committee monitor the progress of Tenure-Track SOL Faculty with respect to each pre-tenure Tenure-Track faculty member’s satisfaction of tenure requirements.
  3. For Tenured SOL Faculty, including those who are Clinical, scholarship may consist of written contributions across a wide variety of genres.  For example, a Tenured SOL Faculty member’s scholarship may consist of:
    • Law review articles, essays, and book reviews;
    • Scholarly monographs;
    • Book chapters; and
    • Serving as author or editor of a law school casebook, hornbook, or other academic publication.

Annual Service Workloads

  1. SOL Faculty are required to serve on at least one SOL committee (or equivalent body) each academic year. Standing SOL Faculty committees include the following:
    • Academic affairs,
    • Admissions,
    • Appointments,
    • Faculty scholarship,
    • Faculty speakers,
    • Community life,
    • Promotion and tenure,
    • Post-tenure review, and
    • Special committees and task forces appointed by the dean to accomplish or address particular concerns and needs.
  2. Depending on the SOL Dean's charge to a SOL Faculty committee, the committee may act independently or report and make recommendations to the SOL Faculty for action.
  3. The SOL Dean appoints SOL Faculty committees annually. The Dean assigns faculty members to committees in his discretion, considering the needs of the SOL and the skill sets of individual faculty members.
  4. The Dean may approve SOL Faculty members’ service to the University outside the SOL, or a member’s engagement in public service as meeting the SOL’s service expectations. This external service can temporarily be considered an acceptable substitute for serving on an SOL committee. As a general rule, when determining salaries the Dean will weigh internal service to the SOL or the University requested or approved by the Dean more heavily than external service chosen by the faculty member.

Annual Workload Planning

  1. Workload planning for the coming academic year begins in winter. The Associate Dean for Academic Affairs consults each faculty member and sets their teaching schedule for the coming academic year. That documented schedule becomes part one of the faculty member’s forthcoming Annual Work Plan (AWP).
  2. Next, in spring and summer the Associate Dean for Research works with each faculty member to set their scholarship/research agenda and expectations for the coming academic year. That becomes part two of the faculty member’s AWP.
  3. Finally, in summer the Dean assigns each faculty member’s service obligations and expectations for the coming academic year. That becomes part three of the faculty member’s AWP.
  4. The three parts combined are filed as each faculty member’s AWP in the Dean’s office, available for use as needed during the academic year and in future review processes.

Evaluation of Faculty Members Based on Their Annual Work Plan

  1. The Faculty Manual leaves the evaluation of faculty to the Dean’s shaping and discretion, except for:
    1. Mandatory Post-Tenure Review conducted for T/TT Faculty every fifth year, as mandated by UNC System policy, and
    2. Review of all NTT faculty conducted by the SOL’s Promotion & Tenure Committee before the renewal of the NTT Faculty member’s contracts every third or fifth year.  The SOL clinic directors, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and Associate Dean for Experiential Education monitor NTT SOL Faculty members’ teaching annually, assisted by Law Library Faculty by the Law Library’s director. This includes reviewing student course evaluations and responding to NTT SOL Faculty requests to teach particular courses in the upcoming academic year.
  2. For purposes of salary adjustments associated with the Annual Raise Process (“ARP”), the Dean has discretion to determine what weighting to give to each workload area (teaching, scholarship/research, and service) for each Faculty member. The Dean retains discretion to make salary adjustments associated with retention of Faculty members, whether such retention is prompted by an offer from another law school or is pre-emptive of other offers.
  3. Annual Faculty Evaluation Process
    1. Soon after Commencement in May, SOL Faculty must complete a comprehensive self-evaluation each year for submission to the SOL Dean. The self-evaluation covers all areas of faculty job responsibility based on the faculty member’s approved Annual Work Plan. A copy of the current form is attached to this Policy as Exhibit A. 
    2. In summer, the SOL Dean reviews the completed self-evaluations in light of each member’s AWP. The SOL Associate Dean for Research, typically with respect to T/TT Faculty, and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, typically with respect to Non-TT Faculty, also review the self-evaluations with respect to their areas of responsibility.
    3. For each SOL Faculty member, the SOL Dean evaluates the member’s service, and the two relevant associate deans evaluate teaching and research. The relevant factors include those listed in the AWP, course evaluations by students, and quality of service, teaching, and research/scholarship as assessed by the deans based on their expertise, experiences, and understanding of best practices in those areas.
    4. The SOL Dean and the two associate deans discuss their evaluations of each faculty member, and the Dean makes a final evaluation of each SOL Faculty member’s performance in light of the member’s AWP. The Dean also determines which faculty members require a Faculty Success Plan based on not meeting expectations on one or more performance goals and communicates the plan to those individuals.
    5. When an ARP takes place, each faculty member’s overall evaluation, as determined by the SOL Dean and the two associate deans, contributes significantly to the SOL Dean’s raise determinations. SOL policy is that the Dean may decline to award merit raises to Faculty members in the Dean’s discretion. The overall evaluation also contributes, among other relevant factors, to the SOL Dean’s willingness to pursue a retention arrangement with a SOL Faculty member who is offered an opportunity to move to another law school.
    6. Also in summer, the SOL Faculty complete Annual Review Meetings as follows:
      1. The SOL has approximately 60 FTE Faculty. It does not have department chairs. The SOL Dean conducts annual review meetings with three categories of SOL Faculty:
        • Junior SOL Faculty, particularly those on Tenure Track, who are in the early stages of their careers and need support, encouragement, and attention;
        • SOL Faculty whose performance at least one workload area as described in the faculty’s member AWP does not meet expectations; and
        • Other SOL Faculty who asked the SOL Dean for the meeting, have special situations, or with whom the Dean chooses to meet for reasons related to that faculty member’s individual situation.
      2. For all other SOL Faculty members, the SOL Dean delegates responsibility for the annual review meeting to one of the associate deans, who then conducts the meeting on behalf of the Dean.

Definitions

The capitalized terms used in this Policy are defined below:

ABA means the American Bar Association, specifically is Section on Legal Education, which acts as the accreditation agency for the SOL (and all law schools in the United States), by delegation of authority from the U.S. Department of Education. 

ABA Standards means the ABA Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools, and the interpretations promulgated by the ABA thereunder.

Adjunct, when used to describe faculty, means faculty members not employed by the SOL as Tenured, Tenure-Track, or Clinical faculty, but who teach on a limited basis at the SOL.

ARP means an annual raise process, as undertaken periodically by the University.

Clinical, when used to describe faculty, means faculty members who are employed by the SOL on a renewable, long-term contract basis and are neither Tenured nor Tenure-Track.

Faculty means all full-time SOL Faculty, including Law Library Faculty as relevant, and does not include Adjunct Faculty.

Faculty Manual means the SOL’s Faculty Reference Manual, as periodically revised.

Law Library Faculty are professional law librarians on the staff of the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library, many of whom have secondary appointments as members of the SOL Faculty and teach individual courses at the SOL.

Policy means this Faculty Workload Policy.

RRWA means the SOL’s Research, Reasoning, Writing, and Advocacy program. 

SOL means the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law.

Tenured, when used to describe SOL Faculty, means faculty members who have earned tenure under applicable University standards.

Tenure-Track, when used to describe SOL Faculty, means faculty members who are in the process of earning tenure under the applicable University and SOL standards.

Related Requirements

External Regulations

Unit Policies, Standards, and Procedures

  • Faculty Manual - This Policy reflects and excerpts relevant portions of the SOL Faculty Manual when appropriate. This Policy is not intended to modify or amend the SOL Faculty Manual in any respect.

Contact Information

Primary Contact

Name: Martin H. Brinkley, Dean

Telephone: 919-413-2155

Email: martin92@unc.edu

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