From the Dean: Challenges and opportunities update

As spring semester is underway, I wanted to update you on some items from my August 2023 message.

Enrollment: For the first time in nearly a decade, we saw a small increase in undergraduate teacher education enrollment in the fall. Interest in allied professions remains strong. Our graduate enrollment is also up at all levels except the doctoral level and non-degree level. However, our overall enrollment at both the graduate and undergraduate levels is down slightly from last year.

Undergraduate enrollment

Graduate enrollment

Budget: As noted in August, our primary source of budget is state revenue generated by the courses we teach, which is returned to us using a formula based on how many credit hours we teach. Effective with calendar year 2024, the formula has changed to incentivize tenure-track faculty to teach undergraduate courses. For this fiscal year (which ends June 30), our budget was reduced by $243,000 due to declining credit hour production. This reduction will carry forward next year, and the Provost’s new CHP funding model will reduce our budget by an additional $122,000 in fiscal year 2025 (which begins July 1, 2024). The processes in which all departments are currently engaging to review programs and course offerings will help make sure we are balancing required and elective courses and have an appropriate number of courses for each degree.

To further address our budget challenges and meet the Provost’s expectation that we increase the percentage of courses taught by regular, full-time faculty, we are going to change how we compensate program coordinators and graduate coordinators. During this academic year, 163 units of instruction were reassigned to program coordination, graduate coordination, or administration. Effective August 1, 2024, we will move to a model by which coordinators receive a salary supplement for their work rather than a course release. This new model will allow us to more equitably compensate faculty for their coordination work. Currently, our only “unit” of compensation is a course release, and faculty receive a course release for widely varying levels of responsibility.

Under the new model, compensation will be based on the number of students and the complexity of the program(s) a faculty member is directing. During instructional support funding meetings, we will confer with department heads about the workload for each coordinator to fine-tune the supplement amounts. Compensation will be spread across the academic year and summer so that all coordinators are compensated year-round. Summer funding will be proportional to academic year funding for each coordinator. Using a salary supplement rather than course releases is consistent with how several other colleges at UGA handle coordinator compensation. The benefit to the coordinator is additional financial compensation paid on a monthly basis, additional contributions to ORP or an increase of the salary upon which TRS retirement is based. A benefit to the College is the consistency that comes from having more classes taught by full-time faculty. I am sorry that this decision is being rolled out quickly without time for discussion, but it is in the College’s best interest to make the change as soon as possible to help ameliorate the budgetary impact.

Workload: As noted in August, the Provost has stated that the standard workload for tenure-track faculty should be 50% instruction, 45% research, and 5% service. Our current model is 40% instruction, 40% research, and 20% service. A review of peer institutions showed that 20% service is the mode, but the Provost views 20% service as excessive. The Provost has clarified that service includes institutional, professional, and community service (however, University promotion guidelines list some service activities such as editing journals under research). Departments and the Faculty Senate have been discussing workload allocation for several months now. The plan for moving forward is that Faculty Senate will vote (likely next week), departments will vote in the near future, and then we will assess the consistency of those votes. If needed, we will convene some Senators and department heads to propose a resolution. Following the decision on tenure-track faculty workload, we will follow a similar process for clinical faculty workload, led by the committee that has been revising clinical guidelines (see next paragraph).

Clinical faculty: A committee of faculty members has revised our Clinical Appointment and Promotion Unit Guidelines to conform to new University guidelines. These guidelines will be available for a college-wide vote in February. The committee is continuing to meet to discuss clinical faculty workload and the use of clinical units.

Reading: We received very positive feedback from both the University System of Georgia and the Georgia Professional Standards Commission on the self-assessments and action plans we submitted in October. Several of our faculty are working with colleagues across USG institutions to develop professional learning modules for educational leaders, a Foundations of Reading course, and other materials that can be used across the system. Our next task is to submit curriculum maps that show where and how we are addressing the foundations of reading in our programs and how we are assessing our students’ learning. These plans are due in October 2024.

DEI: As noted in the announcement about Camille Reynolds’ departure, the College remains committed to the values of DEI. Over the course of spring semester, we will meet with faculty, students, and staff members to take stock of where we have been since the office was first established in August 2016 and what various constituents see as the current needs. These discussions will shape decisions about whether the office is led by a faculty member or a staff member, how the office is configured, and what the priorities are for the office.

As I noted in August, there is a tremendous amount of change happening all at once, but we are steadily working through each change to find ways to protect our ability to do our work with a high degree of excellence.

Over the next few weeks, I will share additional data about our College and budget to provide a more complete picture of the good work that is happening across the College.

Denise Spangler
Dean