Faculty Teaching Load
Average Teaching Load
The full-time teaching load for undergraduate programs is 18-24 semester hours in
an academic year. The following table summarizes teaching loads by department for
the fall 2009 semester. The teaching load for chemistry and physics on first glance
appears to be low. This is not the case. Because of the characteristics of laboratory
classes and the fact that a one-credit-hour laboratory can meet as many as four contact
hours, for these science programs, semester credit hours are not used to define a
full-time load. Instead, contact hours are used to define the load. Faculty in these
departments, within a semester, on average, have a twelve-contact-hour load. The
load for faculty in the music department appears to be excessive. This is because
of the applied music courses that are offered. The faculty have many applied classed
in which only one student is enrolled.
During the fall 2009 semester, a psychology professor announced at the beginning of
the semester a need to go on medical leave, resulting in several faculty having to
carry an extra load. These faculty were compensated for carrying a teaching load
above 12 semester hours. The teaching load for Family and Consumer Sciences is high
because the program lost a faculty member at the beginning of the semester.
A full-time load for graduate faculty is 15 semester hours within a year. A faculty
member may obtain this load by teaching nine semester hours during one semester and
six during the other semester, or by using some other combination.
Most graduate faculty teach both undergraduate and graduate courses. A faculty member
in a semester is teaching only one graduate course and the other courses are at the
undergraduate level; that faculty will have a load that reflects teaching responsibilities
primarily at the undergraduate level (9 to 12 semester hours).
| Average Teaching Load by Department Fall 2009 – Graduate and Undergraduate |
| Department |
Number of Full-Time Faculty Members |
Undergraduate |
Graduate |
Both
Undergraduate and Graduate |
| Accounting, Economics & Information Systems |
18 |
10.6 |
0 |
0 |
| Art |
4 |
10 |
0 |
0 |
| Biology |
13 |
9.5 |
0 |
0 |
| Chemistry |
9 |
6.67 |
0 |
0 |
| Criminal Justice |
11 |
13.5 |
9 |
12 |
| Curriculum & Instruction |
13 |
8.6 |
3 |
4 |
| Family and Consumer Sciences |
4 |
18 |
0 |
0 |
| Educational Leadership |
8 |
0 |
10.1 |
0 |
| English |
20 |
13.5 |
0 |
0 |
| Foreign Languages |
5 |
13.8 |
0 |
0 |
| History |
8 |
12 |
0 |
0 |
| Engineering Technology |
9 |
10 |
0 |
0 |
| Kinesiology, Sport & Leisure Studies |
13 |
11.3 |
0 |
6 |
| Management and Marketing |
11 |
10 |
0 |
0 |
| Mass Communication |
10 |
12.4 |
0 |
3 |
| Mathematics and Computer Science |
17 |
12.6 |
0 |
0 |
| Music |
11 |
25 |
0 |
0 |
| Physics |
8 |
7.8 |
0 |
0 |
| Political Science |
8 |
12 |
9 |
7 |
| Nursing |
30 |
10.08 |
13.4 |
3 |
| Social Work |
10 |
9 |
4.5 |
10.75 |
| Sociology and Psychology |
9 |
15.3 |
1.3 |
0 |
| Speech and Theatre |
8 |
10 |
0 |
0 |
During the spring 2009 semester, because of budget reductions of state institutions
by the Governor of Louisiana, the teaching load for undergraduate faculty was increased
to 15 semester credit hours for that semester. The teaching load for graduate faculty
did not change.
Additional Information:
