Apportionment Policy

May 2024

The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) is dedicated to promoting excellence in all areas of faculty apportionment. Faculty members may generate contributions in research and creative activity, teaching, service, administration, and  scholarly outreach.  A faculty member’s apportionment- the distribution of an individual’s effort - may vary by the nature of the appointment, by discipline, and by career stage. The College must be appropriately flexible in responding to the diverse needs of different departments and faculty members while establishing normative standards for equitable distribution of effort across the faculty. These policies describe expectations within the college¹.

CAS comprises over 30 departments, schools, institutes, and centers. The College’s 400-plus faculty members represent a diverse range of disciplines with different but equally important missions. All CAS departments and programs must have written apportionment policies which outline guidelines for faculty workloads that comply with the College’s policies. These policies are informed by national norms within the various disciplines. Each department’s policy is discussed and approved at the College level. It is important that all faculty members fully understand their workload and performance expectations. These should be described in the initial letter of offer and updated as needed during a faculty member’s career. Annual evaluations should reflect these expectations, and departments should develop salary review policies that consider the individual’s workload distribution and quality of contributions to research,² teaching, and service.

An overarching principle of merit evaluation is that performance expectations scale to the quantity of faculty appointment and the distribution of faculty apportionment.

Categories of Apportionment

Allowed categories of apportionment within CAS include research/creative activity, teaching, service, and administration; always check with the AD-F before discussing possible administrative duties for a faculty member.  Efforts related to scholarly outreach are typically captured within research or teaching; efforts related to DEI should be captured in whichever category best aligns with the effort.

Apportionment vs. FTE

The level of appointment, expressed as a fraction of full-time equivalent (FTE), governs the amount of time available for all efforts. Apportionment reflects expectations for distribution of effort among areas of assigned duty (for example, research, teaching, service, and/or administration). As a result, any evaluation of faculty effort and achievement must consider both appointment and apportionment. For example, expectations for Superior research rating based upon a 1.0 FTE appointment and a 50% research apportionment must be halved for someone with a 50% research apportionment and half-time (0.5 FTE) appointment; the same is true for someone with a 1.0 FTE appointment and a 25% research apportionment. The same principles apply to evaluation of service. In contrast, the quantity of teaching is normally factored into the FTE and teaching apportionment; as a result, inputs do not usually need to be normalized.

Apportionment and nature of faculty appointment

Tenure-track / Tenured Faculty. There is no standard apportionment for tenure- track/tenured faculty in the various units of the College (referred to generically as “department” hereafter). The differentiation of apportionments across departments represents the varying emphases that each department places on research, teaching, and/or service. Consult your Chair or Director for more information.

Practice Faculty. In keeping with university guidelines, Professors of Practice (all ranks)  must have at least an 80% apportionment in teaching or instructional activities. The remaining 20% apportionment is most often associated with expectations in research and/or service, with the latter sometimes including scholarly outreach. In general, an 80% teaching apportionment at 1.0 FTE is considered equivalent to a 3-3 teaching load, or the equivalent if other instruction-related activities (e.g., advising) are included in lieu of instruction.

Research Faculty. In keeping with university guidelines, Research Professors (all ranks) must have at least an 80% apportionment in research. The remaining 20% apportionment is most often associated with expectations in research and/or service, with the latter sometimes including scholarly outreach.

Lecturers. As per UNL Guidelines for appointments, Lecturers should not have any apportionment other than teaching. In keeping with CAS Guidelines for Lecturer appointments, a full-time (1.0 FTE) appointment is typically associated with twelve credit hours of instruction (e.g., four x 3 credit hour courses) per semester; note that that teaching may include some instruction-related activities. See the CAS Lecturer Guidelines and UNL information on faculty appointments for more information.

Assignment and Adjustment of Apportionment

Initial apportionment of duties will be described in the letter of offer.

The flexibility to alter apportionment of workload by negotiation is an important mechanism to accommodate shifting emphases in faculty members’ contributions to the missions of the departments and the University. Faculty members have the opportunity to review and request changes in their apportionment of duties – the distribution of expected effort - in consultation with their Chairs or Directors, who may also initiate this discussion. Apportionment may be reviewed anytime but should always be reviewed as part of the annual evaluation process.

There are constraints on alteration of apportionment. Tenure-line faculty members are expected to make contributions across all areas: research, instruction, and service (including administration) roles. While differing apportionments can result in differing levels of expectation in teaching, research, and/or service, most tenure-line faculty members are expected to contribute some portion of their efforts in each of these three areas. Although expectations for Practice and Research Faculty are constrained to a degree by the focus on instruction and research, respectively, many of these faculty members will also make contributors in multiple areas of apportionment.

The following illustrate scenarios in which adjustment of apportionment is appropriate.

• An alteration in teaching apportionment is appropriate when net teaching efforts change (not involving a scheduling offset, discussed below) for a period of a semester or more. Curricular planning and development activity may be considered as part of a teaching apportionment but must be justified in terms of the expected contribution. Similarly, an increase in research apportionment is nearly always required when a faculty member will be focused on research and creative activity during a Faculty Development Leave.
• In the event of a significant decline of productivity in research and/or creative activity over a multiyear period relative to departmental expectations, reduction of the research apportionment coupled to an increase in other areas is appropriate.   
• Expectations for significant efforts in service or administration must be reflected in the service or administrative apportionment unless these duties are tightly linked to teaching (e.g. instructional coordination, advising, curriculum management) or research (e.g., research administration). Consult with the Associate Dean for Faculty (AD-F) before considering administrative apportionment that is not directly related to an administrate salary.

Major changes in apportionment should be discussed with the ADF in advance and documented at the time of change in an e-mail and or memo. Any change in apportionment must be documented as part of the annual evaluation process.

When is a change in apportionment not needed?

No change in apportionment is required for teaching assignments that have been moved ahead or back by up to one year to deal with course scheduling or course cancellation.

Mutual Agreement on Adjustment to Apportionment

Guidelines for the Evaluation of Faculty describes processes for establishing and modifying apportionments.  The key elements:

• Initial apportionment will be described in the letter of offer.
• Each unit should establish broad criteria for expectations in teaching, research, and service. These criteria will be applied to all faculty members in the unit in “ways which equitably reflect each one’s particular responsibilities and assignments.”
• Apportionments must be reviewed in the annual evaluation, but a separate review may be done in addition to annual evaluations if required.
• Apportionments may be changed by mutual consent. Note, however: “Within the terms of this general apportionment of responsibilities and subject to a faculty member's general area of competence, the details of a faculty member's specific assignments or job description should be subject to joint consultation but are to be determined by the department chair, unit administrator, or director concerned (Regents Bylaws, 3.4.4).” Any significant change in apportionment should be cleared with the Associate Dean for Faculty.
• Adjustments in expectations may occur over time in keeping with changing institutional and personal priorities. Such adjustments shall occur in a timely fashion and with reasonable effort made to assure mutual understanding-- another aim of the annual evaluation process. “It must be clear, however, that no special adjustments of norms for units or individuals shall alter the University's fundamental criterion: all faculty members must do scholarly or professional work that demonstrates creative achievement.”

Lack of agreement over apportionment

As described in the Guidelines, apportionment is established and modified through processes resident in the appointing unit. In the event that a disagreement over apportionment cannot be resolved by discussions at the unit level, the parties should alert the AD-F. The College Executive Committee (“Committee”) will serve as the elected faculty committee in the college to consider the positions of each party with consideration for the faculty member’s overall areas of professional competence and expertise and in the context of the departmental and college missions. The Committee shall decide whether the apportionment of the faculty member’s responsibilities should be changed and, if so, in what matter. The committee decision is to be delivered in writing. The Committee decision is final, subject only to review by committees described in sections 4.13 and 4.14 of the Bylaws of the Board of Regents.