Task force looks into professors’ productivity

Friday, Feb. 6, 2004 | 8:58 a.m.

A Nevada System of Higher Education task force is investigating ways to ensure professors are accountable for their contracted duties and that taxpayers are getting the most for their education dollars.

The task force heard faculty perspectives on workload issues Thursday afternoon from faculty senate leaders at all of Nevada's institutions and looked at how other university systems measure faculty workload.

The Board of Regents created the task force in September 2003 to address public skepticism over self-reported data on professor productivity, Jill Derby, chairwoman of the task force, said.

Each institution has its own policies regarding professor course loads, research endeavors and community service, but regents have questioned how the policies are enforced. Some regents have also asked how research and community service is defined because these areas often make up 60 percent of a professor's workload.

Some regents have received complaints from their constituents that some professors do not work a full course load or are granted reduced course loads to conduct research without producing any significant results.

"I need something that is more quantifiable as to what is research and what is quality research," Regent Steve Sisolak said. "I think there needs to be accountability that presently doesn't exist."

Faculty senate leaders argued that each institution should be allowed to keep its individual policies on faculty workload and should retain the flexibility to be able to reassign professors from the classroom to other tasks that will benefit that institution's or department's specific mission. The faculty leaders said they did agree that there needed to be more accountability and documentation of these reassignments at the departmental level.

How professors are currently held accountable varies by institution, but professors are sometimes only reviewed every one to three years, whenever they come up for promotion or tenure.

One possible solution the task force is reviewing is joining the University of Delaware's national study of instructional cost and productivity, said Tyler Trevor, assistant vice chancellor for academic and student affairs, and director of institutional research.

Participating in the study would allow each academic department to measure its professor productivity against similar departments in other institutions, Trevor said. But some task force members said the time and money involved in filling out the associated questionnaires might be too much.

The task force may instead choose to "steal" some of the Delaware study's definitions for research and public service, Chancellor Jane Nichols said.

The task force also reviewed each institution's policies governing how and when professors can serve as outside consultants.

Professors are often highly paid for outside consulting, which is allowed at all of the institutions because consulting work is viewed as increasing both the expertise of the professor and the prestige of the institution.

But Sisolak saw the outside consulting work as possible double-dipping.

Most Nevada institutions allow professors to spend up to one day a week on outside consulting work, as long as it does not interfere with their contracted obligations. The Desert Research Institute has stricter standards, mandating that any consulting work be done on the individual's own time.

The problem with professors, Nichols said, is that they do not have set work hours other than class time. As long as they meet their individual contract obligations, they can charge for outside consulting work during the week.

The task force will look at strengthening the policy in April by mandating that all consulting work be pre-approved by the institution's department chairman, conflicts of interest be avoided and that consulting work follow the system's code of ethics.

Thursday's meeting was videoconferenced to the system offices in Las Vegas and Reno and at Great Basin College in Elko.