Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe, who chaired the Arts and Sciences Faculty Workload Committee, said that he has met with the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, the Faculty Senate and department heads in the Arts and Sciences regarding the Initial Report of the Arts and Sciences Faculty Workload Committee, which was originally published Feb. 3, and that the report's original proposals for the creation of a new system of faculty reporting and a new committee to oversee faculty workloads are no longer being "actively considered." Jaffe said that although the ideas are not currently on the table, they may be revisited in the future. The committee is a group of faculty and administrators tasked with creating a system by which the University can more effectively manage the distribution of faculty resources. Along with Jaffe, the committee included Profs. Marc Brettler (NEJS), Bulbul Chakraborty (PHYS), Jerry Cohen (AMST) and Richard Parmentier (ANTH).

The original report argued that in order to make sure faculty workloads are evenly distributed and that faculty members are contributing effectively to both the internal and external missions of the University, Brandeis should create a "formal procedure by which all tenured faculty members in Arts and Sciences will report on their recent contributions to the University and their plans for the near future, which is updated and reviewed every five years."

In a recent interview with the Justice, Jaffe said that while the UCC "did not have a whole lot to say about [the report]," the Faculty Senate and the department heads "both suggested that the goals of the committee could be achieved without creating the new review procedure and the new committee that are contemplated by the report."

Prof. Sabine von Mering (GRALL), chair of the Faculty Senate, said that a majority of Faculty Senate members agreed with the idea first raised during Jaffe's meeting with the department chairs that the committee should proceed by "establishing guidelines for examining workloads in different circumstances."

Once those guidelines are established, according to the suggestion of the department heads and Faculty Senate, the review of faculty workloads should be done in conjunction with the annual merit review, which is already established, said Jaffe. He added that perhaps questions could be added to the already-existing retrospective activities report that faculty members are required to submit, which would deal with faculty members' plans going forward.

Von Mering said that while she felt addressing faculty workloads is very important, she would expect that there are only a few instances of dramatic inequity of faculty loads and that the new system proposed in the committee's report would create "a lot of work for a lot of people." She added that the faculty is already overextended, and so there was a sentiment that the system was not the most efficient way to proceed.

Jaffe said that the motivation behind the consideration of faculty workloads came from the "sense, in a number of places, that over the next few years as we decrease the number of faculty and increase the number of students that there are going to be strains on the faculty in terms of their responsibilities." He said that it was very important for faculty morale to have a sense that there is equity in the amount of work being done.

The report states that faculty members make "contributions to the university's missions in the areas of scholarship or creative work, teaching and service."

With the University's increase in enrollment and decrease in faculty hiring as a result of the financial crisis, the report says, there will inevitably be an increase in the "overall burdens borne by the faculty in terms of teaching and advising," and this may create tension between "external and internal demands."

According to the Faculty Handbook, the Dean of Arts and Sciences reserves the power to change faculty members' teaching loads, but von Mering said that this has not been the practice in the past and that this renewed focus on faculty workloads may indicate a change in University practice.