By Howard A. Stahl

Introduction

As part of our contract with the district, full-time faculty are required to perform 15 LHE (lecture hour equivalent) during each fall and spring semester.  Based on the recent 67% Law, part-time faculty may perform as much as 67% of this workload (that is, 10 LHE) during any fall or spring semester.  With this article, I would like to explain how these LHEs are translated into actual worked hours for the different faculty disciplines and departments we have at Santa Monica College.

Whenever a class comes forward to the curriculum committee to be approved and offered by the college, a “load factor” value is assigned to the class by the district.  The highest load factor value that can be assigned is 1.0.  However, there are many other possible load factor values, including 0.5, 0.6, 0.75, 0.875 and 0.882.  These fractional load factor values have a great impact on certain faculty who have long felt that this system is unfair to them.  In this article, I will describe the theory behind load factor and the impact it has on our working conditions.

Understanding “Load Factor”

When faculty teach a class with load factor 1.0, each weekly classroom hour equates to a single LHE.  This is why most full-time faculty spend 15 hours teaching each week of a semester.  But not all faculty teach load factor 1.0 classes.  For full-time faculty teaching classes with a load factor of 0.75, their assignment requires 20 (that is, 15 / 0.75) hours of teaching each week.  For full-time faculty teaching classes with a load factor of 0.875, their assignment requires 17.14 (that is, 15 / 0.875) hours of teaching each week.  Non-teaching faculty such as librarians and counselors perform tasks that have a load factor of 0.5.  What is the rationale for these workload differences?

A load factor of 1.0 is awarded to lecture classes, such as mathematics, political science or history.  For classes with this load factor value, the assumption is that each and every student contact hour is matched with an hour of outside preparation, grading or other task by the faculty member that is teaching the class.

A load factor of 0.75 is awarded to activity-based classes, such as physical education and studio-based art classes.  For classes with this load factor value, the assumption is faculty perform fewer out-of-the-classroom hours to prepare for the class.  For classes of this type, it is also assumed that most student assessment occurs during classroom hours.  A load factor of 0.875 represents some kind of mixed lecture-activity model.  The vast majority of Career Technical Education (CTE) and vocational classes are awarded smaller load factor values.  Non-teaching faculty work assignments receive a load factor of 0.5.  For each non-teaching hour worked, there is no grading or lecture effort involved.  The load factor of 0.5 results in full-time counselors and librarians being assigned 30 hours to meet their 15 LHE commitment.

Troubling Consequences

In general, smaller load factors are awarded to classes that the district feels have a reduced amount of outside preparation or outside student assessment.  But is this assumption valid?  Should Career Technical Education (CTE) courses be worth less than lecture courses?  Do instructors really do less in CTE courses and, therefore, apparently need to do more of them?  Do students work less or learn less in CTE courses?

Additionally, CTE faculty face many challenges that other faculty do not.  For example, in a computer science class I teach, the underlying software package used has gone through five significant releases in just the past nine years.  That is in addition to all the textbook version changes we have all grown accustomed to!  This situation is the norm for all faculty whose discipline includes a software component.

Other non-load-factor-1.0 faculty see other demands on their time in order to allow their students to fully experience their discipline.  Quite integral to the student experience in a dance or theatre class is the performance aspect involved.

Many      faculty in these disciplines spend countless hours on nights and weekends outside of class preparing for their student performances.  How are instructors compensated for this work  in a model that already undervalues each hour these faculty currently spend with their students?

Even more troubling, classes taught in different areas that teach similar content are awarded different load factors based on unstated, false or inaccurate assumptions.  For example, when Art faculty work with computer imaging software in one of their studio classes, it receives a load factor of 0.75.  But when faculty in the Graphic Design Department teach a particular computer imaging program, it receives a load factor of 0.875.  When that same program is used in a class taught by Computer Information Systems faculty, it receives a load factor of 1.0.  Many faculty are unaware of the process used to award load factor and don’t see the negative impact these decisions have on student retention and the ability of faculty to participate in campus life and governance activities to the extent they desire.

Conclusion

With more education as to how load factor actually works, as faculty, we must value each other’s time and break the biases we hold that tell us certain disciplines are not as meaningful, as scholarly or as worthwhile as others.  This logic is a slippery slope that leads to the illogical situation we have now where an hour in the classroom does not get compensated as a full hour.  We hope our administration will take steps to revise the current system.