The Office of the Provost, the Vice Provost of Faculty Affairs, and Faculty Senate are partnering to strengthen equity outcomes within and across departments and units by bringing greater clarity and transparency to three-interrelated areas: (1) faculty responsibilities and expectations, (2) the decision-making processes by which department and unit heads assign faculty responsibilities and set faculty expectations, and (3) the standards by which faculty responsibilities and expectations are measured, assessed, and rewarded.

The Faculty Workload Equity Committee is charged with to the following four initial steps for 2020-22:

1. Collecting: We start at the department-level collecting existing policies, procedures, by-laws, and other written documentation related to faculty workload requirements and expectations.
2. Compiling: Informed by relevant scholarship and national best practices, and working with DU’s office of Institutional Research and VPFA Data Governance Board, we compile the material into relevant reports, graphs, infographics, and/or dashboards to help us get a hold on the data, including by way of comparisons and contrasts, and/or other helpful organizing principles.
3. Comparing: We then compare our practices with national best practices and make concrete recommendations (if and as appropriate) for ways we might increase clarity and transparency towards increased equity. The recommendations will also address ways to ensure that workload policies and best practices align with institutional resources and annual faculty review and merit structures.
4. Coalescing: Based on our recommendations, we will create an initial set of opportunities for productive departmental and unit-level growth in areas of workplace equity; this might include intra- and/or inter- departmental/unit workshops, Chair/Director trainings, a symposium, and/or visiting speakers. In way of deepening and widening the work across campus, we also set follow-up goals for next steps (and possibly a new committee) for follow up.

The committee will also develop strategies for effective feedback loops with FSEC (including Personnel and APC), ODEI, OTL, IR, Deans, and other key constituents.

DEAPs are a research-based approach to improving workload equity and faculty satisfaction through a collaborative, department or academic unit-based approach. These funds would expand the reach of the planned pilot at DU, funding three years of DEAP cohorts of five departments per year, along with national experts to lead workshops, administration of evaluation and self-study tools, and stipends for participating faculty teams.

Teams will:

• participate in training on workload equity and implicit bias
• create a department dashboard to catalyze conversations about workload
• create and revise a department equity action plan
• publicly present their work to the DU community, including academic unit stakeholders

For more information or to get involved see the DEAP Call for Proposals page.