Scientists, almost by definition, are careful with the scientific method and applying that to their area of specialization, yet they find themselves in a peculiar workload. Some scientists internalize this as the nature of the business. However, excessive workload hides important organizational issues. Two of these issues are the (1) inefficiencies in administrative operations and (2) the lack of capacity. Inefficiencies are at times due to demanding the academics to adopt slightly-customized tools designed for other purposes, e.g., an electronic resource programming software designed for firms to accommodate learning management system, at other times they also relate to lack of capacity, e.g., administrative staff to support students in course registration periods. Lack of capacity in academic staff, however, demands a particular scientist to assume the responsibility for more teaching load, as that is where the immediate demand, that of students is the most visible. Since teaching hours cover up hidden work, and the time can be reallocated with some ease from research to teaching, a scientist as an educator, end up doing the job of two scientists at the higher education level, which effectively reduces long-term quality of research and results in a shortage of academic jobs – helping university administrators to negotiate better terms, although operationally and in the short-term only.
Research has a longer wave-length, it takes a few semesters to get relevant output, compared to teaching. A short-term oriented administration may ignore this and set targets that demand a publication in every year/ two years from scientists. That however is less related to the essence of science and more related to university rankings, and attracting more resources either from governments, trust-funds or students. Although this may appear as a legitimate business model, universities are not businesses. Universities are one of the pillars of the society with functionalities that span across hundreds of years. Therefore long-term oriented administrations encounter the difficulty to incentivize high-quality in research products, and compete with short-term oriented administrations, which are backed with short-term oriented firms that rank universities easily in terms of “faculty competence” and “quality” of products in various domains. Does that really support what universities stand for in essence, i.e., human development across centuries?
Although universities may claim to have a certain type of research-teaching workload allocation, there is only one real identifier that is not open to subjective assessments. That identifier is the number of in-class teaching hours per week, written in bold in the table. It can be measured objectively and has a direct correlation with total teaching load. As a ballpark figure, one hour in-class takes four-five hours of invisible labor in teaching. Hence a teaching load that corresponds to 8 to 10 hours per week is a teaching only job for a scientist, who will have to work overtime, and find herself/ himself working 60-70 hours per week instead of 40 hours. Some scientists normalize this and lose touch with their own beings. Is that what we desire from good scientists? Not if we want them as responsible citizens and good educators.
The table below includes types of academic workloads and corresponding weekly hours allocated to these activities, assuming a 40 hours workload per week. Please note that focused workload essentially allocates higher number of hours compared to a balanced workload. Also please note that the ranges may vary. For a university that promotes high quality in education, the multiplier for in-class teaching hours should be higher, e.g., 4 hours in class corresponds to 20 hours of teaching per week.
Table 1: Types of Academic Jobs with Respect to Research, Teaching and Service Activities
| Types | Research | Teaching | Service |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research and teaching balanced academic job | 50% | 50% | – |
| 20 hours/ week | 20 hours/ week (Total) | ||
| 4-5 hours in-class/ week | |||
| Research intensive academic job, balanced with services to society including the university | 50% | 30% | 20% |
| 20 hours/ week | 12 hours/ week (Total) | 8 hours/ week | |
| 2-2.5 hours in-class/ week | |||
| Teaching intensive academic job, balanced with services to society including the university | 30% | 50% | 20% |
| 12 hours/ week | 20 hours/ week (Total) | 8 hours/ week | |
| 3.5-4 hours in-class/ week | |||
| Research-focused academic job | 80% | 20% | – |
| 32 hours/ week | 8 hours/ week (Total) | ||
| About 1.5 hours in-class/ week | |||
| Teaching-focused academic job | 20% | 80% | – |
| 8 hours/ week | 32 hours/ week | ||
| 5-6 hours in-class/ week | |||
| Teaching-only academic job | – | 100% | – |
| 40 hours/week | |||
| 6-8 hours in-class/week |
In summary, short-term oriented competition among university administrators for additional resources end up in faster burnout rates for individuals with many years of investments in advanced-level specialization and inefficiencies over the long term for the very resources they will compete for. One remedy is to recognize the value of long-term impact measures in assessing research, teaching and service output, and use in-class teaching hours as a proxy to measure total workload, with multipliers of 4-5. Otherwise we can just replace universities with social media platforms for education as well, which is happening already in part due to this short-term orientation.
February 1, 2025