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V. Faculty Issues

  1. Current faculty engagement with Summer Quarter
  2. Recommendations for an enhanced self-sustaining Summer Quarter
    1. General Considerations
    2. Structure and governance
    3. Compensation and teaching loads
    4. Visiting faculty and special courses

  1. Current faculty engagement with Summer Quarter

    A central reason for the success of the current Summer Quarter format by comparison with those at other schools is the large proportion of its courses that are taught by existing UW faculty. In examining the figures for this faculty participation, care must be taken to distinguish between classroom courses taught by UW faculty in Summer Quarter for compensation and courses providing credit for independent study, usually at the graduate level, taught by UW faculty without Summer Quarter compensation. Nonetheless, the figures for the 1995 Summer Quarter program showed that approximately 77% of the classroom courses, almost all at the undergraduate level, were taught by faculty with full-time UW teaching appointments, with 2% taught by visiting faculty and 21% by other instructors (including part-time lecturers, research faculty and teaching associates).

    This high proportion of faculty-taught courses elicits favorable student comment and surely contributes to the relatively large enrollments in the UW's Summer Quarter. It forms an important resource for moving toward a regularized Summer Quarter. But the current structure of the Summer Quarter and its arrangements for faculty compensation also accentuate some significant differences between the present Summer Quarter and a regular academic quarter. The present Summer Quarter is shorter--nine rather than ten weeks--and many of the courses (for example, 39% of the undergraduate lecture courses in the Social Sciences in the 1995 Summer Quarter, and 24% of those in the Humanities) are taught A or B term within the quarter, compressing a ten-week course into 4.5 weeks. Instructors receive only one month's compensation for each course that they teach, compared to the nine-month compensation they receive for teaching a 4-6 course load during the regular academic year. This lower rate of compensation is in part due to the fact that faculty teaching in the present Summer Quarter are paid solely for instruction, and not for scholarly development and academic service in the form of committee work. But it also suggests that summer teaching is less highly valued. Some instructors and students have concluded that, with the compression required to teach a 10-week course in 4.5 weeks, the resulting courses are less demanding and of lower quality than courses taught during the regular academic year.

  2. Recommendations for an enhanced self-sustaining Summer Quarter

    1. General considerations
      The committee accepts that Summer Quarter should continue to provide opportunities for special programs and courses not offered at other times or that can cater to students who are only able to take courses at this time. But the committee also believes that enhancing the present self-sustaining summer program should move in the direction of continuing, and further encouraging, faculty participation, while also seeking ways to match the quality and character of Summer Quarter offerings to those of the regular academic year. Our suggestions for this follow.

    2. Structure and governance
      The enhanced Summer Quarter would consist of a standard 10-week instructional session plus an examination period. The bulk of the courses offered should be the same as during the regular year. Courses of shorter duration, such as those involving intensive language training or for professional development, could be also be offered within the Summer Quarter with credits commensurate to their contact hours. The number and distribution of courses to this schedule would be determined by projected student demand and need by departments acting in consultation with the central administration of Summer Quarter. The allocation of summer teaching assignments to regular faculty and other instructors would rest with departments and other instructional units, to be determined according to instructional quality and curricular need. Heads of instructional units would be compensated for their planning and supervision of this enhanced Summer Quarter in addition to the compensation they receive for organizing the instruction of the regular academic year.

    3. Compensation and teaching loads
      UW faculty choosing to teach in Summer Quarter could teach up to a maximum of two summer courses in any one year, courses that would be in addition to their regular nine-month load. Their compensation would be increased to the level of one and a half month's regular salary for each course, as would that of teaching assistants and other instructors, making for a possible additional three months salary (as for two standard courses) in any one year. Instructors teaching courses that were shorter in duration than the 10-week quarter and/or carried less than standard contact hour courses would receive compensation commensurate to the courses' credits and contact hours. Consonant with the University regulation that prohibits working more than five months in any two consecutive summers in addition to a regular nine-month appointment, faculty could not teach more Summer Quarter courses than would entitle them to in excess of five months of summer salary in any two consecutive years. Summer Quarter would continue to contribute to benefits and pay tuition waivers for instructors.

      A plan to encourage a limited number of UW faculty to teach in Summer Quarter as part of their academic year appointment (i.e. for over nine months that would include Summer Quarter) should be developed by the Provost in consultation with the Board of Deans. The committee recommends that three considerations be taken into account when judging how, and on what terms, faculty could take part in this program: first, curricular needs, to ensure a full four-quarter provision of essential courses, as well as summer offerings of high instructional quality; second, that this program be coordinated with the provision and allocation of the additional resources that would come from teaching a higher total annual number of students, thereby ensuring that encouraging faculty to teach in Summer Quarter and not in a regular-year quarter would not diminish the quality and number of course offerings during the regular academic year; and, third, the need to provide opportunities and incentives for the continued professional development of those faculty, as at the associate rank, who are presently drawn by salary compression and other financial pressures into extra Summer Quarter teaching. Consideration should also made for faculty whose schedules are shaped by their reception of research grants.

    4. Visiting faculty and special courses
      Summer Quarter should continue to encourage the appointment of visiting faculty who would enhance Summer Quarter offerings and provide exceptional experiences for UW students. Summer Quarter should continue to provide courses tailored in length and focus to the needs of particular groups of students, such as those seeking intensive language instruction, teacher training, or other professional skills. Course credit and instructor compensation for such courses would be provided on a scale proportionate to those of the Quarter's regular ten-week offerings.

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