December 10, 2020
Lecturers make valuable contributions to the educational mission of the College of Arts and Sciences. Lecturers are non-tenure-track faculty appointed on renewable contracts with terms of 1 to 3 years. As non-tenure-track faculty, lecturers are not subject to the 7-year limitation on length of service.
Lecturers must be appointed at 0.5 FTE or greater and are ordinarily eligible for benefits. Lecturer appointments, regardless of FTE, must have 100% apportionment in teaching and instructionally-related activity. Details related to activities considered part of the instructional appointment are provided below.
The following guidelines do not apply to Lecturers/T: Lecturers/T are instructional faculty on non-tenure-track term appointments of less than one year (i.e. semester-by-semester appointments) and/or less than .5 FTE. There is no limit to how often these semester appointments may be renewed. Lecturers/T are not eligible for benefits.
Teaching Standards
Lecturers are expected to uphold high academic standards in teaching and instructionally-related activities. According to the Bylaws of UNL:
“Faculty members whose responsibilities include classroom teaching are expected to maintain high academic standards. They must maintain competence in their respective fields through creative and scholarly activities. They must be willing to undergo responsible evaluation by peers and by students, and to be guided by the results of such evaluations. They must conduct themselves in accord with any additional obligations provided by the Regents Bylaws” (2.1.1).
Professional development opportunities and mentoring by faculty peers is integral to promoting and sustaining teaching excellence in the College. The Center for Transformative Teaching and the College’s Teaching Academy are two resources to support the development of teaching expertise. Some of the instructionally related activities that a department can assign to a lecturer as a portion of teaching load (see below) may be used to support professional development that is directly related to course design and instruction.
Right and Responsibilities
As faculty members of UNL, lecturers are subject to all University bylaws and policies. As is true of all faculty members, it is a lecturer’s responsibility to be acquainted with the Bylaws of the Board of Regents Chapter IV “Rights and Responsibilities of Professional Staff”.
Lecturers are faculty members of the College of Arts and Sciences and have the right to vote in faculty meetings of the College and in elections for College committees, with the exception of the Promotion and Tenure Committee (approved by the faculty of the college, December 10, 2020). As stated in Section 3.1.3.1 of the Bylaws of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, lecturers with three successive years of paid faculty service are members of the UNL Assembly and may serve on the UNL Faculty Senate.
The College recognizes that departments vary in how they structure faculty governance but encourages all departments to include lecturers in department decisions related to instructional mission, curriculum development and course planning, experiential learning, and student outreach/enrollment, retention, and graduation. Service to faculty governance cannot be required of lecturers, unless it is formally recognized as part of their teaching-related duties. Department and college guidelines on faculty governance must remain consistent with university guidelines for promotion and tenure.
Hiring Lecturers
Since lecturers make significant contributions to the instructional mission of the College, it is essential that we hire and mentor the best teachers for this position. The preferred hiring path for appointing new lecturers is through competitive regional and/or national searches. The college expects departments and programs to focus on clear evidence of high quality teaching and instructionally-related activity in making lecturer appointments.
Contract Lengths and Compensation
Contract lengths should be determined in good faith and for a period of time (at least one year) in which teaching capacity is needed and funding is guaranteed. Contingent upon the availability of funds and anticipated instructional needs, department chairs, in consultation with the Dean’s Office, will make determinations about contract lengths within the following guidelines
- After an initial one-year contract and provided there is clear evidence of strong teaching performance and continuing instructional need, departments are encouraged to offer two-year contracts.
- Departments may offer three-year contracts to lecturers with at least 6 years of continuous service to UNL based upon evidence of at least superior teaching contributions over a sustained period. Appointment letters for contracts longer than two years must have an EVC signature line.
At the time of contract renewals, departments will follow general University guidelines regarding employee salary and wage increases. Departments will submit salary increases for lecturers based on performance and competitiveness and the availability of non-State funds.
“Special Appointments” and Notice of Reappointment
In the language of the Bylaws of the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska (Section 4.4), a "Special Appointment" is a non-tenure leading appointment; employment will terminate without further notice from the University in accordance with the end-date stated in the appointment. Contracts for lecturers may be terminated by either party with notification of at least 90 days as long as this stipulation is stated in the contract. Early termination of an appointment by the University is unusual but can occur for adequate cause, disability, bona fide discontinuance of a program or department, or extraordinary circumstances related to financial exigencies.
Consistent with Section 2.10 of the Bylaws of the Board of Regents, the department chair is the primary officer charged with the administration of the department. In particular, it is the responsibility of the department chair, in consultation with the college, to determine whether reappointment of a lecturer is appropriate. Reappointment of lecturers must take into account the anticipated instructional needs of the department. As a result, lecturers who have performed well but whose teaching expertise does not match the anticipated instructional needs of a department may receive notice of non-reappointment. Departments are encouraged to discuss anticipated non-reappointments with the Dean’s Office.
Based upon a review of a lecturer’s teaching record and overall performance, and assuming continued instructional need and available funding, departments are encouraged to provide notice of reappointment/non-reappointment 90 days prior to the end-date of a lecturer contract. As noted further below, it is the college’s expectation that reappointments will only be offered to lecturers who have an overall rating of at least “Good” during the preceding contract period. Reappointment of lecturers will be completed without an open search process.
Standard Course Load/FTE
Full Time Equivalency (1.0) typically requires four, three-credit hour courses per semester, or the equivalent credit hours (12) per semester (a three credit hour course = .125 FTE). This course load/FTE standard includes the instruction and oversight of labs where the lecturer is the instructor of record. An alternative course load/FTE standard is possible when a course involves teaching large enrollment sections or the management of a large number of subsections; the Dean’s Office reviews all course load/FTE allocations at the time of issuing/renewing a contract.
Instructionally-related activities are considered “in load” contributions; rough equivalencies between classroom assignments and instructionally-related activities can be calculated based on one 3-hour course requiring approximately 10-12 hours per week (e.g., a work assignment calculated to require 5-6 hours of effort/week = .06 FTE). In most cases, no more than the equivalent of one regular course per year may be replaced with instructionally-related activities. The apportionment of instructionally-related activity must be specified in the lecturer contract or as an addendum to the contract.
Instructionally-Related Activities
These activities are related to teaching, planning, developing, supervising, or improving credit-generating courses whether in person or online. As described in the Apportionment Categories document on the EVC website, these activities may include:
- Coordinating/convening multiple sections of courses – in person or online
- Supervising theses, UCARE projects, and/or independent study courses
- Significant assigned responsibilities related to new curriculum development, developing/supervising experiential learning opportunities, course planning or assessment.
Research in the scholarship of teaching and learning is not considered an instructionally-related activity. While lecturers are encouraged to bring forward opportunities for instructionally-related activities to their chair or director, it is the responsibility of the chair/director to make these and other teaching assignments within the constraints of departmental need and budget. The distribution and apportionment of instructionally-related activities for lecturers within the College will be reviewed by the Dean’s office before the end of April each year.
Guidelines for Class Size and Workload
To support excellence in teaching while maintaining a positive work environment for lecturers and students, departments are encouraged to consider the following factors in creating course assignments that are reasonable and equitable: class sizes, the nature of course assessments and grading, expectations for student interactions, and the availability of teaching and grading support. In the case of new and less experienced lecturers (≤ 2 years), departments should strive to limit the number of distinct course preparations to no more than two per semester.
Annual Performance Reviews
Annual evaluations of the performance of all faculty members are required by the Bylaws of the Board of Regents (4.6). Departments are expected to provide annual written performance evaluations of Lecturers. At a minimum, Lecturers will submit the following documents for annual review:
- CV
- Course syllabi
- Student Learning Experience Survey results
In addition, departments are expected to provide at least one peer observation report of the lecturer’s teaching for the year under review. Peer observations should be conducted in person or via access to online teaching by any tenure-line or practice faculty. For guidelines related to peer observation, contact the Dean's Office.
The relevant department review committee will utilize the ratings of Outstanding, Superior, Good, Adequate, or Inadequate in its summative evaluation of annual teaching performance.
Decisions regarding reappointment will be determined by the instructional needs of the department, availability of funding, and the teaching record and overall performance of the lecturer. Assuming the criteria of instructional need and funding are met, it is the college’s expectation that reappointments will be offered only to lecturers who have an overall rating of at least “Good” during the preceding contract period.
Annual performance reviews will be utilized in considering potential merit increases based upon strong performance and the availability of funds. As appropriate, department mentoring and other professional development opportunities will also be tied to the outcome of annual reviews.
Appeals
Appeal of an annual performance evaluation should be made with the department Chair. If this fails to resolve the matter, the appeal should be directed to the Associate Dean for Faculty.
Any faculty member with a grievance or other concern relating to their academic freedom, to their conditions of employment, or to professional conduct is encouraged to contact the Academic Rights and Responsibilities Committee.
Additional Resources and Contacts at UNL
- Associate Dean for Faculty, College of Arts and Sciences
- Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty and Academic Affairs
- College of Arts and Sciences Committee on Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech
- Faculty Ombuds Services
- Academic Rights and Responsibilities Committee, Faculty Senate