Handling Increased Faculty and Student Workload During Difficult Economic Times

The recent national economic downturn has placed increasing pressure on higher education to do more with less, or maintain program integrity with diminishing dollars. Faced with financial challenges to adding faculty, especially in light of enrollment increases, there has to be another way to meet this challenge. In conventional course occurrences, events like a midterm, final and assignments tend to overlap between classes, and can cause big spikes in student workload. With an increased number of students in each class, students can also feel the pressure of increased competition. These stresses’ on both faculty and students, negatively affect the positive outcomes desired by both groups. This paper describes the formulation, design, and execution of two planning methods used to help balance the needs, workload, and time resources for both the faculty and students in an Engineering curriculum. One approach compares weekly instructor workload for the planning and delivery across three classes. Covering items from the creation of the syllabus and homework assignments, to lecture preparation and grading, its goal is to create a workable structure for the instructor. The second approach compares the actual weekly assignment and exam load across seven classes for students with when those assignments and exams need to be graded by the instructor. This method looks at the work that needs to be accomplished and sets up a structure to help insure the success of the student learning, and the instructor’s ability to actually grade the work in a balanced format. Included in the paper are the actual grading workload counts for each method. The paper also challenges the reader to review his or her own instructional planning methods for possible improvements in outcomes for both students and faculty.