Instructional Overloads

Purpose: 

To provide information to departments about college and university policies and procedures related to faculty instructional overloads. 

Relevant Definitions: 

Instructional Overload: For the purposes of this guidance, an instructional overload exists when a faculty member is assigned to teach an organized course and this assignment results in the faculty member’s overall appointment exceeding 40 SWH.

This may apply to a faculty member with only a faculty assignment, or this may apply to a staff member with a 0% faculty position, where teaching is not expected as a normal job responsibility

In most cases, instructional overload approval applies specifically to professional track faculty. Tenured and tenure-track faculty have (comparatively) permeable workloads, that can be shifted across the three areas of teaching, research, and service, and, within teaching, can occasionally be shifted across semesters and even academic years. On the contrary, for any professional track faculty member teaching above 12 contact hours within one long semester, or any staff member teaching outside their normal job duties and above 40 SWH, such teaching constitutes an instructional overload requiring approval and compensation. 

Option III Allowance: An allowance paid to a faculty member above their normal full-time salary as compensation for teaching a course in an Option III MA program. Option III teaching is considered to be additional employment rather than an instructional overload, and approvals and compensations requests for Option III faculty therefore follow additional employment guidelines. 

Allowance: payment made to a faculty member for longer-term additional employment (technically 30 days or more), as compensation for an ongoing activity or job.

Instructional overloads are most typically compensated via an allowance for the duration of the semester in which the overload is being taught (9/1-1/15 or 1/16-5/31).

Allowances that are providing compensation for an overload are coded as “Instructional Overload - ongoing.”

In BP comments, be sure to state the account from which the allowance will be paid. 

Instructional Overload Form (IOF): A form maintained by APS that must be final approved by the Dean’s Office and APS before additional employment is authorized. 

APS: Academic Personnel Services; team within the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost responsible for overseeing many faculty processes for the university. 

Faculty: University employees holding any of the academic titles defined in Regent’s Rule 31001, except for Faculty Associate. 

The Dean’s Office: For the purposes of additional employment approval, the Dean’s Office is represented by the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. To receive necessary approvals on additional employment forms, COLA HR is the intermediary between you and the Associate Dean, as well as APS. 

COLA HR: Liberal Arts's college-level HR team; also cola_hr@austin.utexas.edu

WD: Workday; https://www.myworkday.com/utaustin/d/pex/home.htmld

Process: 

1. The department/unit requesting to hire the faculty member downloads the Instructional Overload Pre-approval Form from the APS website.
   1. Note: If an overload is being requested as part of a new faculty hire (for example, when hiring a professional track faculty member who has never taught previously in your unit), prepare and submit the overload request as the first step in the PAR process, although do not wait for final approval before moving forward with the rest of the PAR.
   2. Complete the Current Employment, Proposed Employment, and Justification sections of the form.
   3. Fields should be filled out based on precise WD information, including use of the specific Supervisory Organization listed in WD and the specific job profile.
      1. If the faculty member has multiple jobs, those jobs should be added under the “other additional jobs” section of the Current Employment section.
   4. The effective date will normally be either 9/1/YY or 1/16/YY.
   5. The end date will normally be either 1/15/YY or 5/31/YY.
   6. "Total amount of compensation" is the amount to be paid for the overload.
      1. Assuming the overload is one course, this will normally be 1/6 of the faculty member’s 9-month rate.
      2. However, it might be less--if, for example, only part of the teaching stipend is being paid as an overload (if a staff member’s staff job is only 30 SWH, for example)--or more, depending on individual circumstances.
      3. In this section, the account (cost center) that will be used must also be entered, as indicated on the form. The account on the form and the account the payment is processed on (via the BP) must match.
   7. Course Information and Justification: List the specific course to be taught as an overload, including abbreviation (e.g., LAH 350), title ("Paddington Goes to College"), and, whenever possible, the unique number. The "reason for request and qualifications" section need not be extensive, but the information should be clear and substantive. Overloads should be requested only for distinct, necessary reasons [i.e., because the faculty member who was going to teach the course is sick and cannot do it, so a last minute replacement is needed (as opposed to, the faculty member asked to teach an overload, and we didn’t want to say ‘no.’)]. Comments in this section might look something like: “Prof. Bond will be in England on a Fulbright fellowship in the Fall semester, and this course is critical for students’ degree progression. Prof. “the Bear”, who will be covering this course, earned their Ph.D. in children’s storytelling in 1995 from Zoo U. and has extensive experience teaching this course at UT-Austin and other colleges and universities.”  
2. Have the primary unit head sign the form and the requesting unit head sign the form. In some cases this may be the same individual.
3. Upload the partially signed form to COLA HR via the IOF submissions portal.
4. COLA HR will route the form to the Associate Dean for approval.
5. COLA HR will then route the form to APS for final approval.
6. COLA HR will returned the form to you once it is fully approved.
7. Initiate a “Propose Compensation Change” BP, most typically adding an allowance for the duration of the semester.
   1. The allowance is calculated on a monthly basis, derived by taking the total amount of compensation to be paid (for the semester) and dividing by 4.5. 

Related Policies: 

COLA Faculty Policies 

Other Related Links: 

Instructional Overload Pre-approval Form

Faculty Additional Employment Decision Tree

Request Compensation Change BP (WIG)