Everyone knows that professors do more than just grade student papers. What some might not realize is how many duties outside of research and teaching can be part of the job.
Many departments recompense faculty who take on these additional commitments with rewards such as fewer teaching responsibilities. This compensation, though, varies so widely that the Arts and Sciences Council formed an ad hoc committee last semester to examine the issue. Faculty debated and passed the committee’s recommendations at the council’s meeting Thursday.
The primary concern was a lack of transparency regarding compensation. The council unanimously resolved that faculty should have access to guidelines that spell out the different benefits available to them when they assume administrative roles, particularly the positions of director of graduate or undergraduate studies.
“There’s a sense that maybe you can have a menu,” said Craufurd Goodwin, chair of the committee and professor of economics. Professors need to know, he explained, that they can choose from among several options, including a decrease in course load or a predetermined amount of research funding.
Members of the committee relied on the results of a faculty survey conducted in January to formulate their recommendations. They cautioned that the 58 responses were unsuitable for statistical analysis. In their report, however, they quoted from the responses of anonymous faculty members.
Faculty generally know little about their options for compensation, the committee found.
“Those who are junior faculty or relatively new to Duke seemed to know least,” the report states, adding that most had only a vague idea of other departments’ practices. “We were informed that the range of compensation varies widely from a DUS who gets nothing to a DGS who gets two course relief.”
Since George McLendon, dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences, was unable to attend, Susan Roth, dean of social sciences, answered multiple questions on his behalf.
Creating guidelines “would take a considerable amount of work,” Roth said. “It’s just not systematic right now. It’s a mess.”
Still, Roth affirmed that the deans would consider and respond to the council’s recommendations.
One of the committee’s major caveats was the need to scrutinize extensions of supplementary compensation.
“It seems like this conflicts to some extent with [McLendon’s] initiative on student honors theses,” pointed out Christopher Conover, assistant research professor of public policy, referring to a tentatively planned expansion of the honors thesis program.
McLendon advocated exploring rewards other than course relief to encourage professors to advise students in independent studies. His interest helped to spark the committee’s formation, but the project was ultimately excluded from the committee’s purview.
Committee members made clear that they were aware of the challenges ahead. They noted that department budgets do not yet include specific mention of compensation for the DUS and DGS. Additionally, differences among departments in terms of size and staff support influence the difficulty of those jobs.
“We know this can’t be done tomorrow, because I’m told there is no policy on some of these issues,” Goodwin said. “They’re going to think hard about it.”
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