Statewide Development of an “Academic Professional Model”:

Full-time faculty members have a wide set of responsibilities to their campus and the college that form the core of academic affairs and our mission to serve students. These responsibilities focus primarily on teaching, fulfilling our Student Success Commitments, developing curriculum, and remaining an expert in each faculty member’s specific instructional discipline. Many of these responsibilities are internal, intellectual activities that can be fulfilled independent of any physical location, time or day, but some essential faculty responsibilities require physical presence on campus. These responsibilities involve interaction with colleagues and especially service to our students and potential students. 

The Academic Professional Model trusts that faculty know how to and will schedule their time to fulfill their commitments to the college, our students, and our community. Additionally, these commitments may be met in a variety of locations: on- or off-campus, in person, virtually, or online. 

General principles for academics include: 

1. Faculty, through collaboration with members of academic leadership, will determine the work locations that best demonstrate an environment for student success.
2. Faculty will develop schedules that serve students in a variety of modalities. For example, faculty might schedule their office, tutoring, and advising hours as virtual, online, and/or face-to-face to meet the needs of students.
3. Faculty will make their schedules available to students and staff in multiple, relevant modalities. 
4. Campus leadership will engage with their campus faculty advisory council to further embrace and operationalize these principles.

• This statement is now awaiting final approval with statewide administration members and will be utilized by the statewide faculty loading taskforce to improve / revise current faculty loading policies.