Body
Unit Policy
Title
School of Government: Faculty Development Assignment (FDA) Policy
Introduction
Purpose
The Faculty Development Assignment (FDA) policy is designed to support and enhance the School's tradition of providing high-impact teaching, research and publication, and advising. The policy creates an institutional expectation for the School's 12-month faculty to reserve blocks of time to focus on development activities that will increase the breadth and depth of their impact. The School's commitment to responsiveness is a core value, and access to faculty members for advice and information is highly valued by public officials and others who seek our expertise. Faculty members must, however, balance the immediate demands of their regular (daily) advising, teaching, administrative, and recurring writing responsibilities with their need to continually expand and deepen their knowledge and expertise within their fields of work. The faculty development policy is designed to make sure that faculty members have protected time to maintain and increase their impact.
Scope
This policy applies to 12-month faculty members at the UNC School of Government, including tenured faculty, non-tenured faculty, and lecturers.
Policy
Each faculty member is encouraged to complete a development assignment period of four to six weeks each fiscal year. Each faculty member is expected to complete a development assignment at least once every two fiscal years. During this time faculty members are expected to focus on professional development activities that increase their impact on the School's mission.
School Management of and Support for the Faculty Development Assignment Policy
Faculty members are not expected to respond to inquiries or engage in administrative activities during the development assignment period. Public officials and others who seek assistance may have to wait longer or go elsewhere to get answers to their questions, and some of them will reach out to other faculty members. Colleagues are not expected to fill the gaps or handle the overflow. This means that the policy will have internal and external impacts. The School expects faculty to follow a list of communication strategies the School has developed so that colleagues and clients are informed about the need for faculty members to have blocks of time for focused professional development work. Those strategies are described in procedures that accompany this policy. The School will also find ways to connect people with relevant publications, blogs, and other resources when faculty members are not available. An additional potential benefit of the policy is the opportunity for public officials to become more familiar with and accustomed to using available School resources.
Faculty members are expected to report their FDA work in the Faculty Activity Report for the relevant year(s) in which they have taken FDA time. Faculty members are also expected to share insights, learning, or outcomes of their assignments. The School's Academic Policy Advisory Committee (APAC) will implement and continually evaluate the efficacy and impact of this policy. The Senior Associate Dean will be responsible for addressing issues related to FDAs, in consultation with APAC as necessary.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The policy says that faculty members are "expected" to complete a development assignment period. What does that mean?
The presumption is that every faculty member will set aside time to complete an FDA by engaging in development activities of their choice. This expectation reinforces the value of faculty development as an institutional priority for the School. Ideally, faculty members will incorporate development assignment time into their schedules and that, in time, it will come to be considered - internally and externally – a normal and regular part of faculty work.
What kinds of activities are appropriate for FDA time?
The purpose of this time is to allow faculty members to step back from the daily, routine activities, and to focus on experiences or projects of their own choosing that will increase their impact on the School's mission. Examples include research, writing, curriculum and teaching development, in-depth advising projects, data collection and analysis, spending time observing or performing work in government settings (local, state, national, or international), and other development activities. FDA time should not be used to catch up on backed up inquiries or administrative tasks. Faculty members should prioritize big picture projects, a "deep dive" into an area of work, or any other development activity that will improve faculty service to the mission.
Is there a requirement to complete a product of some kind during faculty development time?
No. Time can be spent simply deepening knowledge or expertise through experiential learning or research. Faculty members are required to describe the work they did during FDA time in their Faculty Activity Report.
Is there a process for applying to take FDA time? Do we have to get approval for what we plan to do?
There is no approval process. Faculty members will be required to post a brief description of how they intend to use their time and to list specific dates they have blocked out for the work in their faculty activity report. The description can be general and brief - a single paragraph will do. Faculty members are free to change their plans and update the summary at any time before or during the assignment period. Faculty members may view plans posted by others to get ideas for their own use of development assignment time, and the Dean, Senior Associate Dean, or other colleagues may provide suggestions or feedback that will help faculty members make productive use of their development time.
Non-tenured faculty members and lecturers who have faculty advisory committees are required to consult with their committees about their plans and the time they have identified for completing them.
Will there be any monitoring of whether or how faculty members are using their development assignment time?
Faculty members will be asked to report on their use of development assignment time as part of their annual activity reports to the dean. This will allow the dean to see how they have used their time and will provide information with which to evaluate the policy and its impact. Faculty members may also find it useful to review these reports as they consider their own plans to see how their colleagues have used their time.
Non-tenured faculty members and lecturers who have faculty advisory committees are required to report to their faculty advisory committees on their use of FDA time.
Is a faculty member expected to take their time all at the same time as a block?
Ideally, yes, but that might not always be possible. The goal is to really get away from the daily work and devote significant time to projects or experiences that are qualitatively different from routine work. This requires setting aside blocks of time, not just a few days or a week here and there. The policy recognizes, however, that the nature of a proposed project may not lend itself to a four- to six-week block. A person who plans to spend time visiting government offices or attending educational programs will have to plan their time around those activities. In these cases, faculty members are free to schedule time as necessary to accomplish their planned activities. Even in these situations, however, the expectation is to take development assignment time in blocks of at least two weeks.
Are faculty members required to coordinate with faculty and staff about their plans for development assignment time?
Yes. Faculty members should notify the faculty and staff colleagues with whom they regularly work, and coordinate their time as much as possible. This does not mean, however, that faculty members must make sure that someone else will "cover" their advising or otherwise stand in for them while they are on assignment time, nor is there any expectation that colleagues will be responsible for doing that. Faculty members who are working on development assignments should take steps to prepare their client group(s), students, or others with whom they regularly interact, by creating out-of-office messages, internal routing of calls and emails, and identifying alternative resources within and outside the School. These messages should also make clear that other faculty members may or will not be available to respond. (Whether it's "may" or "will not" will depend upon whether other faculty members have overlapping expertise, and if so, whether and to what extent they have the capacity and willingness to absorb any additional work.) The dean and our marketing and communications colleagues will support the policy by helping us explain why development assignments are important, and why folks may experience times of delay or gaps in service. We will also use these opportunities to direct clients to other resources, including our publications and web-based materials, as well as outside resources.
Faculty and staff are expected to support those who are working on development assignments by limiting inquiries, referrals, or other requests that may interrupt or interfere with their work. Faculty members who are out on development assignment time should, however, coordinate with staff and be available to them as necessary before and, if necessary, during, that time if the staff members need to consult with faculty about upcoming courses or other matters that require faculty input. Faculty members also may be asked to interrupt development assignment time if their expertise is essential to a time-sensitive high priority matter.
What about teaching that is a regular part of a School-sponsored, or co-sponsored course or curriculum? Should faculty members honor those commitments during development assignment time?
Yes. Faculty members should honor internal teaching commitments, either by scheduling their development assignment time to avoid these conflicts or by doing the teaching during their scheduled time. The latter choice makes sense especially if the session does not require significant preparation or travel time. Faculty members may also identify a substitute if that is acceptable to the faculty member in charge of the course. If a conflict is unavoidable, the faculty member in charge of the course is responsible for finding a replacement. A faculty member who has an unavoidable conflict should notify the faculty member in charge of the course at least three months in advance. Faculty members who teach in the MPA program should honor teaching commitments for MPA courses and portfolio obligations.
Why do we have a policy stating this expectation? Isn't this something anyone can do whenever they want to?
It's certainly true that faculty members can manage their work and schedules as they see fit – in theory. But the reality is that many faculty members struggle to find or create blocks of time for in-depth research and writing, work on teaching, time away in the field or engaging in other long-term projects or professional development activities. The internal and external culture of responsiveness and collegiality tends to result in a prioritization of attending to advising, teaching, and availability for short-term consultation. This policy sets out expectations and steps that the School will take to reduce barriers and manage the internal and external impacts, which have historically made it difficult for faculty to block out significant time for focused work.
How does development assignment time relate to writing leaves?
Our Internal Guidelines for the Faculty Appointment, Tenure and Promotion Process describes a writing leave as something that requires approval by the Dean and Faculty Advisory Committees when a person will be completely unavailable for regular advising or teaching responsibilities. (APT Guidelines, p. 13.) It is rare for faculty members to actually seek approval for writing leaves. As noted in the previous answer, faculty members have expressed mixed feelings about taking time away to do writing even short of an official leave, due to internal and external pressures to manage and maintain the teaching and advising work. Development assignment time may be used for writing projects, and a faculty member may still request a writing leave if additional time is needed, or if the development assignment time is used for other priorities.
How do development assignments relate to other professional development activities, such as new faculty members spending time in government offices as orientation to their work, or faculty attendance at conferences or teaching opportunities out of state?
These activities will continue to be treated as they are now and may, but do not have to, be treated as development assignments.
Are there funds available to support expenses associated with development assignment work?
There are no funds set aside specifically for development assignment work. The School will provide support under existing policies for funding professional development and research support. The pilot project to hire subject matter experts, (authorized as part of the implementation of the strategic foresight recommendations), will provide research support and may also help with responding to inquiries and directing clients to resources that are available to meet their needs.
Background
This policy was a recommendation of the School of Government's strategic foresight process in 2016. The recommendation came from the committee charged to "[m]ake recommendations to reduce faculty time spent responding to advising requests and certain teaching and conference administration obligations in fields with the highest demand. The goal is to reallocate their time to higher-impact teaching, research, and advising." The committee concluded that:
Existing School policies grant faculty members much discretion to structure their work time to balance advising duties with teaching, research/writing, and administrative duties. Faculty with heavy advising loads sometimes struggle to manage client expectations with respect to advising requests, though. Technological advances have significantly increased advising burdens on certain faculty members. The School has cultivated a culture of responsiveness and that has increasingly translated into client expectations of 24/7 access to faculty for advising purposes. Faculty members also are increasingly concerned about how to balance the 'timeliness' component of responsiveness with the 'substantive value' component of responsiveness. In order to maintain the value of our advising work, we need to have time to develop and refine the expertise that informs our responses.
Based on this recommendation, Associate Dean for Faculty Development Frayda Bluestein led the School's Academic Policy Advisory Committee (APAC) through development of this policy in 2016-17. That included a pilot and surveying faculty who participated in the pilot.
Faculty Development Assignment Checklist and Communication Strategies (8/2017)
Congratulations on your decision to embark on a faculty development assignment! Here are steps you can take to ensure your assignment goes smoothly:
- Go to the new Faculty Development Assignment section of the Faculty Activity Report and describe your preliminary idea and enter planned dates for your Assignment.
- Add or adjust your assignment dates on the Faculty Development Assignment Calendar. [Shared calendar name: SOG Faculty Development Assignments]
- In Outlook, go to Calendar.
- Click on Home in horizontal menu at top of page
- Open Calendar > From Address Book
- Search for SOG Faculty Development Assignments ("SOG Faculty" should be enough to bring it up in the results)
- Provide to reception (receptionist@sog.unc.edu), marketing and communications (marketing@sog.unc.edu), and the library (library@sog.unc.edu) with the information you want them to provide in response to inquiries that come in for you, and let them know if there are any inquiries you want to know about. Consider making this information available in your Faculty Development Assignment Calendar entry.
- Develop a list of resources (blog posts, publications, the Knapp Library, etc.) that can be shared with clients in your absence. This list can go in your out-of-office message. Consider making this information available in your Faculty Development Assignment Calendar entry.
- Discuss your assignment dates with your colleagues who might be getting advising calls. Remember: they're not obligated to pick up those calls, but it might make them more comfortable if you share a helpful list of resources with them.
- Consider informing colleagues at associations or state agencies who might be contacted in your absence to let them know of your plan to be out of the office.
- Share your list of helpful resources with faculty support staff, program managers, and the Marketing Division who might also be contacted in your absence.
- Are there any course planning details you need to take care of before you embark on your assignment? Be sure and coordinate with program managers.
- Record an out-of-office message on your voicemail and create one for your e-mail that runs the duration of your leave. (See samples below.) You may or may not want to share what you're working on with others. The message should be informative enough to manage client expectation but also brief enough to shield your efforts from scrutiny.
- Plan where you will be working—at the library, at home, in the office. Physical distance will help you put some mental distance between you and your telephone.
- Plan for your return, so that you're not overwhelmed with requests and other details when you come back to the office. You may want to re-integrate only 2–3 days per week at first.
- At completion, go to the new Faculty Development Assignment section of the Faculty Activity Report and finish the questions there, including a description of the work you did on your Assignment and the impact you expect it to have.
Faculty Development Assignment Sample Out-of-Office Messages
Sample 1:
I'm out of the office through July 15, 2017 on a development assignment.
If you're looking for answers to legal and procedural questions, here are some resources that might be of use:
- Chris Tyner, Legal Research Associate, 919.843.8404, ctyner@sog.unc.edu
- School of Government Library (sog.unc.edu/resources/microsites/knapp-library)
- Criminal Law Blog (nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu)
Sample 2:
I'm out of the office on a development assignment through July 15, 2017. My faculty colleagues may not be available to respond to your requests. Here are a few of my latest resources on taxes that might be helpful:
- Death and Taxes Blog (deathandtaxes.sog.unc.edu)
- Coates' Canons Blog, "Finance and Tax" articles (canons.sog.unc.edu/category/finance-tax)
- In Rem Foreclosure Forms and Procedures and Fundamentals of Property Tax Collection in North Carolina (sog.unc.edu/publications/books/rem-foreclosure-forms-and-procedures-and-fundamentals-property-tax-collection-law-north-carolina)
Sample 3:
I'm out of the office on an assignment through July 15, 2017.
Sample 4:
I'm out of the office working on a publication on juvenile offenders through July 15, 2017.
Contact Information
Primary Contact
Name: Aimee Wall, Dean
Telephone: 919-966-4107
Email: wall@sog.unc.edu