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Faculty Workload

What is Faculty Workload?

Faculty workload represents the distribution of responsibilities into primary areas in which faculty contribute to the vital missions of their department and university. Workload is broken down for into six major categories that are listed below. Workload categories are based on percentages that sum to 100%. Faculty and their department head collaboratively determine the percentage distribution where faculty devote their time to each area. This is typically set at the original point of hire in the offer letter to faculty. Faculty workload tends to be consistent from year to year; however, at certain times it may be adjusted due to sabbatical, grants/awards, temporary alternative duty assignment, or departmental needs. Most tenure-track and continuing status-track faculty are employees at 1.0 FTE. Career-track faculty should be at least .75 FTE or higher.

Traditionally at U.S. R1 higher education institutions, tenure-track faculty have had a 40-40-20 workload, which represents 40% teaching, 40% research/scholarship/creative activity, and 20% service (unit, university, discipline, local and global communities). This workload may vary somewhat across disciplines, but it often varies quite a bit across faculty tracks. For example, career-track faculty who primarily teach often have a higher teaching workload and lower workload for research/scholarship/creative activity or for service. Research professors or continuing status track faculty often have lower teaching workload expectations if at all.

Details of workload categories vary by college and by unit-level discipline. The Workload Guidelines by College webpage includes each college’s workload documents for easy reference. Broad descriptions of each workload area are outlined below and  may include the following:

  • Research/Scholarship/Creative Activity
    • Examples may include but are not limited to: publications, books, grants, exhibitions, creative activity, performances, patents.
  • Teaching
    • Examples may include but are not limited to: teaching classes, developing curriculum, mentoring students, overseeing graduate projects.
  • Service/Outreach
    • Examples may include but are not limited to: peer reviews (journals, books, grants), leadership in national organizations, local and global community service as an expert in their field, internal university service (department, college or university level).
  • Clinical Service
    • Examples may include but are not limited to: clinical teaching, clinical work with patients.
  • Administrative Service
    • Examples may include but are not limited to: administrative positions within the institution, such as department head, assistant/associate dean.
  • Extension
    • Examples may include but are not limited to: activities done within cooperative extension, which may include contracts, public facing education or projects.
  • Other Professional Activities
    • This category is typically only used by continuing status track who have job descriptions and duties that are updated annually. 

Use of Workload for Faculty Evaluation

  • Annual Review
    • Annual reviews are scored based on each portion of workload as well as an overall score.
    • They also play an important role in determining merit raises and identifying nominees for award nominations.
    • In addition, annual reviews help identify any areas of performance that do not meet expectations, which may lead to faculty development plans or performance improvement plans.
  • Promotion & Tenure
    • Promotion and tenure review is guided by each faculty member’s workload distribution, as such it is the second section of the promotion dossier.
    • For tenure-track faculty, external reviews play a critical role, it is expected that workload expectations are similar to faculty in peer institutions.
      • Effective review of dossiers for promotion or tenure by external reviewers is predicated on the assumption of a similar workload distribution across peer institutions.
    • If tenure or continuing status is not granted, faculty have one year before leaving their position and cannot be rehired by the University of Arizona.
    • Faculty ranks and tenure status are linked with eligibility for certain awards (local, national, international) and with certain grant eligibility.

Research-Based Resources

  • American Council on Education (ACE)
    • These six aspects are recommendations to improve workload fairness.
      • Transparency: Departments have widely visible information about faculty work activities available for department members to see.
      • Clarity: Departments have clearly identified and well-understood benchmarks for faculty work activities.
      • Credit: Departments recognize and reward faculty members who are expending more effort in certain areas.
      • Norms: Departments have a commitment to ensuring faculty workload is fair and have put systems in place that reinforce these norms.
      • Context: Departments acknowledge that different faculty members have different strengths, interests, and demands that shape their workloads and offer workload flexibility to recognize this context.
      • Accountability: Departments have mechanisms in place to ensure that faculty members fulfill their work obligations and receive credit for their labor. 

We provide examples of policies and practices that promote these conditions. 

  • American Council on Education Workload Report 2022 |  Read the report.
  • University of Arizona Preliminary Examination into Faculty Workload - September 2021 | Read the report.

U of A Faculty Workload Report

The 2023 Faculty Workload Report offers the first examination of faculty workload data by track, title series, rank, and colleges. The insights in this report are made possible through the Faculty Workload Distribution tool, which began in Fall 2022 and serves as a reliable source of faculty workload data with confirmation from faculty and department head/directors. This report follows the initial 2021 Preliminary Examination into faculty workload. 

Read the U of A 2023 Faculty Workload Report.

Faculty Activity Reporting

Other reports that touch on faculty workload are: 

  • 2023 U of A Internal Faculty Climate Survey Report. This report outlines institutional strengths, areas for improvement, and actionable recommendations, with key findings disaggregated by faculty tracks, and demographic groups.
    • Faculty of all tracks reported dissatisfaction with the workload in their current role.
    • No relevant difference is observed among tenure, continuing and career track faculty on workload satisfaction in current roles.
  • 2024 U of A COACHE Action Item Report. This UofA internal report presents core strengths and areas of improvement, a set of actionable recommendations, and an implementation timeline based on the Harvard COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey results. This project was a shared governance process that included the COACHE faculty working group, the Office of Faculty Affairs, and University Analytics and Institutional Research.
    • The survey showed that flexible workload was a new area of strength at the University of Arizona since the last COACHE survey in 2018.
    • The report shows satisfaction with research and teaching among faculty of all tracks and ranks. Service is an area of concern.   
  • COVID-19 Check-In Survey Report: Faculty and Instructors. In response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the University of Arizona asked faculty and instructors to move all teaching to remote learning. Both qualitative and quantitative survey questions were adapted from a national survey on remote teaching, as well as including items developed specific to COVID-19 work experiences.

U of A Workload Distribution Tool Background

For purposes of annual review and promotion review, a Faculty Workload Distribution tool was created within UAccess Employee to track faculty annual workload distribution. Faculty workload distribution (percentage allotted to research, teaching, service, etc.) is key to annual review as well as promotion and tenure reviews. It is essential that both faculty and their head/director discuss and agree on their workload distribution on an annual basis. This is usually done during the annual review in the Spring. 

The workload tool went live in July 2022. It was pre-filled with existing data that was entered in the system from data provided by department heads in 2020. This data is reviewed regularly by heads/directors; faculty can also review at any time. After the initial data entry, data will only need to be entered if there is a change in workload or for new faculty; the faculty workload will roll over from year to year automatically within the system.  

The Faculty Workload Tool has been a collaborative project between Human Resources, the Office of the Provost, and University Analytics and Institutional Research (UAIR). Thank you for your support and assistance with the implementation of this important project that is central to faculty processes of annual review and promotion.  

Resources for the Faculty Workload Distribution tool

  • Department Heads/Directors
    • Department heads/directors can review the unit summary report of faculty workload at the Faculty Workload link.
  • Business Managers
  • Faculty
    • Typically, faculty workload for the coming year is discussed at the time of annual review; so it is expected that faculty and department heads have already discussed workload for the coming year in the past Spring.
    • A guide for faculty to review their workload in UAccess can be found here – ESS Faculty Workload. If workload is not correct, faculty will first speak with the department head, if agreement cannot be reached, an appeal process to the Dean will be available. Details will be forthcoming. 
      Workload Distribution FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions on the Workload Distribution Project 

For data entry in August 2026, enter the faculty member’s plan for the upcoming year 2026-2027. Upcoming workload is usually agreed upon at the faculty member’s annual review in the Spring.

The workload categories are the same as they have been in previous years for annual review and promotion reviews. The Office of the Provost provides general guidance for each of the categories. This workload distribution is determined by the department head and the faculty member. Workload distribution and allocation of workload is not decided by business officers.

The data will be entered by business officers. Heads/Directors will provide information on workload distribution for all faculty members in a unit.

You can delegate this task to anyone. The delegate will need to be provisioned with the Position Cross-Reference role. 

Although unit heads will not be required to login to UAccess Employee and approve, they will be accountable for the information that is entered. Department Heads should be involved in the process outside of the system by reviewing and approving data before providing it to the Business Officer(s). They will discuss workload distribution with faculty members at the annual review meeting. It is recommended that department heads review the data once it is entered by Business Officers in order to confirm accuracy.

No, faculty will not be able to update their own records directly. They will be able to view the information in their UAccess Employee – Personal Info tile. If the information is not accurate, the first step is for the faculty member to meet with the department head to discuss and to reach agreement.

If the department head and faculty member cannot reach agreement, then the faculty member may appeal to the Dean. The appeal process is to send an email to the Dean to indicate when they had discussed with the department head and to make a brief rationale for their request.  The appeal process needs to be completed within 30 days of the last discussion with the department head.

Please note: Faculty still need to update their workload in Annual Profile.

The data will be used by the faculty member and their department head for their annual review and promotion reviews. The Office of the Provost will examine the data on a regular basis for equity analysis of workloads.

On a future basis, data will need to be updated before the end of the fiscal year. It is only for this first year of data entry that we are asking department heads to upload data early this Fall semester and to finalize by early October with faculty review. 

Technically, faculty workload can be updated at any time. We will recommend updating and confirming workload once a year after annual review and before the end of the fiscal year.

Yes, it is relevant for all faculty tracks, including continuing status faculty, career-track faculty, and tenure-track faculty. It is not required for adjunct faculty or designated campus colleagues.

The information entered is effective dated. Any information entered can be reported for the academic year and calendar year and does not need to be updated every semester if the workload percentage does not change.

Yes, please ignore supplemental comp positions when entering workload percentages and focus on the primary appointment(s).

Please consider the entire 1.0 FTE position when calculating workload percentages. 

Example 1: A faculty member has more than one appointment, but only the primary appointment is visible. You should record their administrative, teaching, research, and service percentages (as applicable) to total to 100%, all on the one position.

Example 2: A faculty member has more than one position/department visible. Each position will be recorded to equal 100% at the indicated FTE (i.e., 100% of the 0.49 FTE). The other department will do the same on the position for which they are fiscally responsible.

No, do not include Workload Distributions for Designated Campus Colleagues (DCCs). 

The Business Manager will add “SABB” or “1/2 SABB” in the text boxes for the appropriate year.

Please email facultyaffairs@email.arizona.edu.