New Assignment Processes

Dear Faculty,

After we communicated the change in the assignment timeline, it has become clear that there is some uneven articulation of the new process and faculty’s new rights. We hope this message will provide some clarity to both areas.

New Contract Language

The new CBA states “each employee shall submit a proposal for their next year’s assignment noting the department/unit’s expectations commensurate with the assigned effort/position to the person responsible for making their assignment.” (lines 2120-2123). The administration is going to be providing a space to do so on Panther180, and all proposals must be submitted there (in other words, you can’t send an email to your chair requesting the assignment and not also provide the requestion in the formal system).

Faculty should request both their percentage of effort in teaching, research, service, and administration, noting some of these categories will not be applicable to some faculty. Total effort must equal 100%.

Importantly, some departments have established processes and associated templates currently in place for faculty to request assignments. We encourage those templates to be updated as necessary to ensure faculty can provide the details articulated below. If those templates have been helpful for faculty, we encourage faculty continue to use them by completing any required information on Panther180 and attaching the completed template in Panther180.

Teaching and Instruction

Concerning teaching effort, faculty should request the instructional classes they want to teach and the semester(s) they want to offer the class (giving particular note to mini-mester classes, if those are offered in your department). Noting that many of us are unsure about course offerings in Spring 2026, we encourage faculty to provide general information (i.e., an upper-level undergraduate elective class, a required masters-level class, an introductory class required to complete the degree). Additionally, faculty should note the modalities (online, hybrid, face-to-face) they would like to teach, as well as the days, times, and locations (MMC, BBC, or other University-owned location) for face-to-face classes. Faculty should list any curricular development work they plan do to, including developing new courses or revising existing courses to a more substantial extent than faculty normally do as they plan to teach an existing course. Lastly, if student advising/dissertation effort is considered within your department as part of faculty teaching activity, be sure to provide the number of undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students you advise. If you plan or are planning to have dissertation chair/committee members responsibilities next year, provide details of doctoral students who have advanced to candidacy including your role (chair, co-chair, member, methodologist, etc.), the date of the student’s last dissertation milestone, and the student’s anticipated graduation date.

Research and Scholarship

For research/scholarly effort, faculty should note their planned activities for the next year. While faculty are not generally assigned specific research/scholarly activities, providing these details will both help justify the percentage of effort you are requesting and help the department chair/director during evaluations. For faculty with external research grants or contracts, detail the percentage of effort required by the grant.Service and Community Engagement

In detailing service activities, faculty should list their departmental, school/college, university, and professional plans. They should also detail planned community engagement work. For faculty with external service grants or contracts, detail the percentage of effort required by the grant. We have found that many faculty exceed the normal .10 effort in service, and we need to ensure that assigned service activities, especially those related to department, school/college, and university work, do not extend beyond assigned effort.In-unit Administrative Effort

Lastly, for faculty with administrative assignments, who are largely acting as program directors, assistant/associate chair/director, internship/practicum coordinators, or another in-unit administrative role, be sure to list the activities you plan to do.We know this is a new process for some and it might seem laborious. Do know that this new right helps protect faculty from arbitrary or unreasonable assignments. Moreover, this process should help ensure annual evaluations are firmly based on a shared understanding of assigned activities and expectations. As annual evaluations are a key component of post-tenure review, by strengthening faculty’s role in the assignment process we area also extending our influence over this problematic new requirement.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions by contacting our lead negotiator, Dan Saunders (daniel.saunders@uff-fiu.org). Thanks as always for your work.
In solidarity,
UFF-FIU

 

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