Dive Brief:
- Half of faculty members at Mizzou don’t teach the University of Missouri system’s minimum load of two courses per semester, and lawmakers are threatening state funding over the finding.
- Inside Higher Ed reports waiver rates were lower at the University of Missouri’s non-research-intensive campuses, predictable because the most common reason for granting a waiver was to free a faculty member up for research, with other reasons including service and doctoral supervision.
- Average teaching loads for Mizzou faculty without waivers was well above the 180-credit-hour minimum, reflecting a distribution of teaching loads based on an instructor’s other responsibilities, something critical legislators do not seem to account for.
Dive Insight:
The University of Missouri is not the first public system in the country to take fire from elected officials for the teaching loads of its faculty. Lawmakers use their control over state budgets to make demands of higher education institutions. During this past year’s budget discussion in Wisconsin, UW-Madison's chancellor was criticized for offering reduced teaching loads to keep faculty members from leaving for other institutions. The Wisconsin legislature was discussing a $300 million cut to the university system over the next two years, eventually scaling that number back to $250 million. Iowa legislators, too, considered setting minimum teaching loads this past year, and threatened to fire faculty, regardless of tenure status, based on student evaluations.
Across the board, research universities commonly give faculty a break from teaching to conduct their research, which brings back funding and prestige to the institution. If legislators become too activist, however, that tradition could break down.