A&S Course Reduction Guidelines
There are two mechanisms by which faculty members in the College of Arts & Sciences may arrange for reassignment of their time from teaching to research and scholarship.
Internal Arrangements
The College understands that tenure-track faculty often need additional time for research prior to their penultimate year. Therefore, department chairs may work out an arrangement that would provide these faculty with additional time for research. If internal department resources are sufficient, for example, the department chair may adjust the standard teaching load of 2-2-2 so that a pre-tenure faculty member may have one quarter's teaching time assigned to research during their third year. However, before finalizing any such arrangement, the department chair must consult with the dean and obtain the dean's approval.
On rare occasions, and for appropriate reasons, chairs may also make such an internal adjustment for tenured faculty members with the dean's approval.
Professional Development Program
The Professional Development Program funds partial replacement of teaching capacity needed for reassignment of teaching time to research and scholarly activities. While the program is meant to support faculty especially from small departments, any faculty member is eligible to apply.
Individual faculty members will propose projects to their department chairs. Projects may include such activities as developing new courses for such areas as Tier III, professional upgrading of teaching, developing new areas of research, writing grant proposals, or undertaking special scholarly activity. The basic evaluative criterion will be the long-term benefit to Ohio University. The department chair will evaluate the proposal and forward it to the dean for review. If the dean approves the proposal, the dean will provide the department of a successful applicant with funds for a partial replacement of teaching capacity, based on Part-time and Overload Teaching Rates.
Proposals under this program must reach the dean's office by Dec. 1 of the academic year preceding the requested reassignment. This will allow departments maximum flexibility in planning their schedules for the following year.
Since the purpose of this award is to provide extra time for research or faculty development, faculty members receiving an award under this program may not take on any extra teaching during the quarter of the award. This includes teaching at one of the branch campuses. Similarly, while faculty members are expected to maintain regular departmental obligations, they should not take on additional service during the quarter of the award.