III. The Faculty

L. Teaching and Advising Responsibilities of Faculty Members

A faculty member at Colgate is expected to participate actively in the life of the college, both inside and outside of the classroom. The responsibilities of faculty members for teaching and advising students, scholarly activity, and service to the University community cannot easily be divided, counted, and credited. The following is then intended to serve as guideline for faculty members. Questions should be directed to department chairs or division directors.

1. Teaching Loads and Load Credits The normal teaching load is five units (or "load credits") per year. The teaching of one course usually equals one load credit, although the Dean's Advisory Council has approved the following standard variations:

a. A faculty member earns two load credits for courses with an enrollment of 60 or more students.

b. Two load credits are given if two or more faculty teach a course of 50 or more students.

c. For team-taught Liberal Arts Core Curriculum courses, all instructors receive a credit when the course is offered for the first time, provided that they are involved on a full-time basis in the course. The second and third times such courses are taught, a full load credit is granted to each instructor, provided there are respectively 15 and 20 students per full-time participating faculty member.

d. Laboratory sessions receive fractional load credit: ¹/3 if regularly scheduled for less than three-hour labs, ¹/2 if regularly scheduled at least three hours but under five hours, and ²/3 if regularly scheduled at five hours or more.

e. In the event that a faculty member teaches more or less than the expected load over a given year, an adjusted teaching assignment should be arranged by the faculty member, department chair, and division director within the following academic year. Courses taught by full-time faculty beyond the usual 5 are paid at10% of the faculty member's current salary (with an upper and lower limit that changes annually).

Load credit is also earned for certain administrative assignments, such as department chair or division director, subject to rules established by the division director and approved by the Dean of the Faculty. Load credits may only be earned in the fall or spring terms. Faculty members who supervise an off-campus study group or an extended study course will receive either load credit or additional compensation for such supervision.

The typical teaching pattern of faculty members is thus two or three load credits in one academic term, and two or three load credits in the other term (i.e., 3­2 or 2­3 pattern), for a total of five load credits for the year. (Faculty members whose applications to enter the Accelerated Leave Program have been approved by the Dean's Advisory Council may have a maximum of one additional load credit per year counted towards an accelerated leave. For details, see Section III.K.1.)

In addition to the regular classroom responsibilities, it is assumed that members of the faculty will be willing to supervise a limited number of undergraduate independent study and/or honors projects. Normally, a faculty member should not supervise more than three to five such projects in any one term.

2. Load Cards At the beginning of each term, faculty members complete load cards providing data on courses taught, the number of students in each, office hours, and location of classes. These load cards are distributed by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty and should be completed and returned to department chairs for review. The load cards will then be sent to division directors, who will forward them to the Dean of the Faculty.

3. Scheduling of Teaching Responsibilities Advance planning of teaching responsibilities is essential in order to adequately staff the various University academic programs. Such planning is usually done two years in advance on a tentative basis. Scheduling of teaching responsibilities is primarily the task of department chairs, working with faculty and leaders of other University programs.

4. Academic Advising Every student at Colgate has two advisers, a faculty academic adviser and an administrative adviser. The general responsibility of faculty advisers is to help students formulate and fulfill their academic plans. To meet this advising goal, faculty are asked to assume responsibility for discussing and processing academic record forms in areas such as course registration, course withdrawal, and academic leaves of absence.

a. First-Year Student and Sophomore Advising The student's first-year seminar instructor will become his or her academic adviser for the student's first two years. One of the principal goals of advising for first-year students is to insure that students, in consultation with their first-year seminar instructor, begin to plan their academic program for the next three terms. The Colgate curriculum features a wide variety of choices for students, and the multitude of programs, requirements, and options may tend to overwhelm the beginning student. Careful planning in consultation with the student's academic adviser is essential if the student is to take full advantage of the range of educational experiences offered by Colgate.

Special attention should be paid to designing a program of study which will permit the student to satisfy general education and physical education requirements, complete prerequisite courses for particular concentrations, study groups or pre-professional programs (especially in the health sciences), and explore a number of different disciplines in the liberal arts.

If the first-year seminar instructor will be on leave or away from campus for other reasons for one or more of the following terms, the seminar instructor, with the assistance of his or her department chair, will reassign the students to another adviser within the same department. Transfer students entering as second-term first-year students or as sophomores or juniors will be referred by the Admission Office to the department in which they expressed an interest in concentrating. The chair of that department will then assign the student a faculty adviser.

b. Junior and Senior Advising Faculty members also serve as academic advisers for juniors and seniors in the department of concentration, and assist students in making postgraduate plans.

Students select an official "concentration" or major no later than April of the sophomore year, during Early Course Registration for the fall term (for details on selecting a concentration, see Section IV.A.3). After the student decides on a concentration, the department or topical concentration program will assign a faculty adviser who will advise the student on course selections for the next term and sign his or her course registration form. It is suggested that the new adviser and student also tentatively plan the student's academic program for the final two years, taking care that all concentration and other University requirements have been or will be met, and that the student has carefully considered the various Colgate programs and courses which are still available in the final two years.

5. Office Hours Each member of the faculty is expected to post and keep reasonable and regular office hours during the term (3 to 4 hours/week is a minimum).

6. Other Responsibilities In addition to their teaching and advising responsibilities, faculty members are expected to participate in the necessary work of departmental, divisional, and college-wide committees and groups. First-year faculty do not normally serve on University or Faculty committees, but do participate in departmental meetings and in meetings of the Faculty. Elections to University and Faculty committees are held at the April Faculty Meeting. The Faculty Nominating Committee generally attempts to survey faculty members' interest in particular governance units prior to making nominations.