The state Board of Regents and Iowa State officials addressed the problem of faculty hours devoted to actual classroom time during the faculty activities report at the Regents meeting in Iowa City last Wednesday.

Regents expressed concern over the fact that the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ISU, along with the College of LAS at University of Iowa, has the lowest percentage of credit hours generated by tenured and probationary faculty.

They also have the highest proportion of credit hours generated by graduate teaching assistants.

President Martin Jischke said ISU’s mission statement does not fit the Regents’ required action and ISU differs from the other universities in that respect. He said faculty efforts are spent roughly as follows: one-half instructional, one-third research, one-eighth outreach and extension and one-twentieth administrative.

“That’s a land-grant mix and I think it’s the right one, personally,” Jischke said.

Faculty Senate President Bill Woodman said the land grant’s mission recognizes not only teaching, but extension and research as fundamental. “When you try to put a number by a faculty member, that’s where the rubber hits the rope,” he said.

He said it is an indirect illustration and, with the development of the Center for Teaching Excellence, the number of faculty taking advantage of that assistance has risen over the past year.

“The speaker sessions have been well-attended. If faculty thought that teaching wasn’t important, they wouldn’t be going to speeches; they would stay at home on a Monday night instead,” Woodman said.

Woodman said he hopes people won’t forget that students learn in many ways. “Teaching is not just in the classroom,” he said.

He said students can gain real world experience by folding their in-and-out of classroom experiences into a mosaic of opportunity. The 1996 Pappas Report recommendation suggested the three state universities “implement management mechanisms to ensure effective oversight and monitoring of faculty activities at the departmental, collegiate and institutional levels.”

One recommendation was for the institutions to develop an information portfolio system to ensure effective management of faculty productivity.

Goals set by ISU included having all faculty involved in undergraduate teaching, including 95 percent of tenured and probationary faculty paid from instructional funds. Sixty-five percent of student credit hours in organized sections would be taught by tenured and probationary faculty and the ratio of student credit hours per full-time equivalent faculty would be 210:1.

Final reports on these recommendations will be given to the Regents for its review in May 1997 as part of the annual governance report on instructional workload, faculty effort and professional activity.

Woodman said there is more work to be done before the May Regents meeting. “We have a different emphasis to bring forth a more unified set of policies to allow cross policies to be made,” he said.

He said the critical point is creating appropriate measures. “If you’re going to redesign faculty time, you must do so in a way that allows … [that] they be properly recognized,” he said.

Woodman suggested other avenues for recognition besides tenure, such as travel support equipment and instructional support.