n recent semesters, full-time faculty across campus have experienced low-enrollment, and as a result, the FA has received questions concerning load-balancing.

For full-time faculty who don’t have enough classes to fill their contractual load due to the unavailability of classes or class cancellations, load-balancing represents a potential solution.  If a full-time faculty member finds themselves with less than a full load for a Fall term, there are several options available:

• Teach an additional class this semester. The faculty member would be paid at their hourly/overload rate for hours worked in excess of 100% of a full-time load.
• Choose to load-balance.  The faculty member would be assigned additional classes or assignments to balance teaching loads across the Fall and Spring semesters to equal 100% of an annual full-time load. Any hours worked in excess of 100% of a full-time load shall be paid at the faculty member’s hourly/overload rate. 

Example:

Imagine that a full-time faculty member’s load is 3 classes for a total of 14 hours/week for the Fall 2023 semester, 1 hour shy of the faculty member’s load requirement of 15 hours/week.  The faculty member could 

• Teach an additional class this semester.  If the faculty member is assigned a lecture class that meets for 4 hours each week, 1 hour would be applied toward the semester load requirement.  The faculty member would be paid for the remaining 3 hours each week at the applicable overload rate.  OR
• Choose to load-balance.  The faculty member agrees to teach 14 hours/week during the Fall 2023 semester and make up the 1-hour load deficit by teaching an additional 4-hour/week lecture class during the Spring 2024 term.  One hour would be applied toward the Fall 2023 load deficit of 1 hour, and the faculty member would be paid for the remaining 3 hours each week at the applicable overload rate.  

Load- balancing can also be used to help staff classes which need staffing.

Other important details of load-balancing include

• Load-balancing can only take place during the fall and spring semesters and does not apply to intersessions.  Typically load-balancing must take place within the same academic year (no load-balancing between the Spring term of one academic year and the Fall term of the following academic year).
• Both load-balancing and teaching overload are optional.  
• However, if a full-time faculty member has less than a full-load during an academic year and chooses not to load-balance or work overload, they will face “a pro-rata pay reduction for the amount below 100% of an annual full-time load for the academic year.”

For more on load-balancing, please see Article 5.7 of the CBA (faculty contract).