Five years ago, I was collaborating with a team of academic professionals to establish a baseline understanding of faculty course reassignments, which were perceived to have increased significantly over the past decade. Like many higher education institutions, a course load policy was in place that suggested each tenured and tenure-line faculty member should be teaching six course sections during the academic year. Of course, there were built-in exceptions to the policy based on the unique needs of disciplines, administrative efforts of faculty, absences due to sabbaticals, and other situations. As we explored this issue, we participated in a meeting with a dean who had just learned the average number of courses taught by each faculty member in his unit was less than three. In other words, less than 50% of the resources the department had allocated for instruction were actually being used for the purpose of classroom teaching. As he was reflecting on the information being shared, he sat back in his chair and delivered a response that continues to impact me to this day. He simply said, “Throughout the year I receive requests for course reassignments, but I had never imagined it had gotten to this point.” Of course, it would be easy to suggest he was derelict in his duties, but I received his words quite differently. He was simply reinforcing a truth I learned working with academic professionals many years ago. Smart people tend to make good decisions when provided with timely and accurate information. In contrast, it is difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to make good decisions with inaccurate or nonexistent information.

Coursework Delivery

Each semester, academic department chairs collaborate closely with their colleagues to develop a course schedule that ensures an accessible core curriculum, provides students with courses necessary for their majors, and accommodates other disciplines through allied requirements and interdisciplinary opportunities. Although this activity seems straightforward prima facie, the underlying data telling the story of coursework delivery are often fraught with anomalies and customizations that may feel overwhelming for those working in this space. Examples of these challenges include team-taught courses, interdisciplinary sections, the time needed for administrative assignments, and incomplete data. A practical example of this phenomenon is the fact that a faculty member named “Staff” is often the most popular one seen on course listings at institutions with which I have worked. Of course, the entry of “Staff” is normally an administrative or placeholder term that makes sense from an operational focus but may hinder managerial efforts related to learning outcomes and student persistence. Another example of an administrative activity that hinders strategic efforts is room scheduling. I have seen examples where 51 courses were shown by the institutional information system as meeting only one time; this was a workaround for navigating outdated classroom scheduling software. These examples make the inventory, analysis, and reporting of course offerings a material challenge. Reporting this information in its current state may be correct from an administrative perspective; however, suggesting to faculty that there are 51 sections meeting once per section appears absurd. This creates self-inflicted obstacles that require time for the development team to overcome. Fortunately, most college and university registrars can identify and resolve these problems when preparing data for end-of-term transcript maintenance, so leveraging this resource is important for developing a trusted and useful coursework file.

Aligning Curriculum with Coursework Delivery

As discussed earlier in the section, the act of documenting the academic program classification and aligning the coursework delivery with this classification would appear to be a simple task. At one point in my career, I would have agreed. However, after more than 40 successful engagements requiring the completion of this task, I am confident it is rarely a straightforward approach. To reiterate this point, in the next paragraph, I share two familiar challenges based on my experience.

First, the curriculum in higher education institutions tends to be multidisciplinary by nature. What this means in practical terms is that there are often linkages between disciplines. These linkages, or crossovers, manifest themselves in a myriad of ways, including cross-listed sections, allied requirements, faculty teaching responsibilities across disciplines, diverse types of schedules, and course-load variability, and the list goes on. One practical instance of this crossover involved an undergraduate program in biochemistry. As the name implies, its curriculum and faculty would likely come from two academic disciplines, biology, and chemistry. In cases such as these, the distribution of resources is normally done via an informal agreement, with little documentation as to how resources are allocated and who has oversight over faculty effort. Understanding where these crossover activities are occurring and developing an approach for aligning resources accordingly at the front end of the classification development yields positive results once the decision support tool build begins. Second, I often find customizations of the academic program classification that have been undertaken for reasons that may be euphemistically described as non-strategic. For instance, one institution I worked with maintained two music departments, one undergraduate and one graduate. I quickly learned there was a curricular dispute between the music faculty decades earlier and the solution was to split the department into separate academic departments to keep the peace. Although this may seem absurd to many, keep in mind a college or university is often considered a community or a family, and we all know there may be conflicts between members of communities and families. The key point to take from this is to be aware that these anomalies may occur and to address the issue within the classification discussion to avoid unproductive conversations in the future. As we transition to Section 11, I emphasize that being intentional about the academic program classification and coursework delivery integration described in this section is a critical step and should not be taken lightly. In plain language, an institution that is unable to accurately inventory and visualize the curriculum to align with the perception of the faculty may experience significant challenges when it comes time to align faculty effort and finances with the curriculum.

Key Points

• Higher education institutions need integrated decision support tools for financial and operational planning.

• The lack of integration among key information systems is due to independent administrative operations.

• A proposed academic cost framework aligns expenses with revenues, tailored to the unique needs of academic departments and disciplines.

• Collaboration and comprehensive data management are essential for informed decision making.

• Effective academic program classification and coursework delivery alignment are critical for the success of the academic cost framework.

Exercise for Provost, Senior Academic Administrators, and Faculty Leaders

Establishing a comprehensive and accepted course load and section reassignment inventory requires extensive customizations across academic disciplines. Further, the coursework dataset tends to be problematic owing to administrative workarounds and data entry errors that are easily explained at the discipline level but nearly impossible to identify without the necessary context. This is also often one of the more time intensive activities of developing a decision support tool, and I encourage an approach that is both collaborative and transparent. To support this approach, I offer the following activities that may be facilitated by the academic affairs team.

1. Data Integrity and Cleanup Sessions – Conduct sessions focused on clarifying and standardizing data definitions in the institution’s information systems. These sessions should involve staff from the registrar’s office and information technology and academic departments. The goal is to address issues such as the mislabeling of faculty as “Staff” in course descriptions, using incorrect section entries, and other data anomalies. This activity improves the accuracy of course and faculty data, which is crucial for effective decision making and resource allocation.

In conclusion, the establishment of a comprehensive and accepted course inventory is not just a bureaucratic exercise but is a fundamental step toward enhancing the quality and coherence of educational offerings. By engaging in collaborative and transparent practices, such as curriculum mapping workshops and data integrity cleanup sessions, institutions can foster a deeper understanding and alignment among faculty, staff, and administrative units. This alignment is essential for making informed decisions, optimizing resource allocation, and ultimately providing a more cohesive and effective educational experience for students. Therefore, it is imperative that the academic affairs division and its respective units take proactive steps in embracing these activities. The success of this endeavor will not only streamline academic operations but also significantly contribute to the overall mission of educational excellence.