Standard III. Faculty

III.7 Faculty assignments relate to the needs of a program and to the competencies and interests of individual faculty members. These assignments assure that the quality of instruction is maintained throughout the year and take into account the time needed by the faculty for teaching, student counseling, research, professional development, and institutional and professional service.

The standard teaching load is two courses in two terms of the academic year. However, teaching loads can be adjusted to facilitate research (with a subsidy from the funding agency), to permit a special service project, or to permit faculty to teach additional courses in the third term. Faculty members teach core courses regularly, whether in the primary MLIS program or in one of the specializations. These assignments are made to ensure that the quality of instruction for the introductory courses is consistently maintained, thus promoting the success of the students. It also provides faculty with the opportunity to interact meaningfully with new students, permitting them to better understand the learning and social needs of students early on in the program. Such exposure enables faculty to meaningfully revise programs of study, to address admissions criteria, and to design learning experiences appropriate to the student body.

Faculty also have a choice to design and teach courses outside of the core or required courses. This permits them to share their research interests and passions with students. In many cases, faculty develop new courses which reflect current developments and challenges in the field – as perceived from the literature and professional conferences. If faculty develop new courses, such efforts are reflected in their teaching load and in the annual evaluation by the Dean. Such efforts are also considered by tenure and promotion committees as separate from teaching an established course.

Advising students is changing as the student body changes in terms of educational and professional background, age, and expectations. As revealed in Standard IV, students in the iSchool’s MLIS program are now younger and many lack practical experience. This results in students who need more guidance in designing an appropriate course of study – they may need assistance even to clarify their career goals. In addition, their expectations of the advising relationship are often different from that of the more mature student. Faculty have to incorporate different methods of communicating and advising students. Although students are permitted to self-enroll for classes, the program faculty encourage students to discuss the program of study throughout their terms of study. Incoming MLIS students participate in group orientation and advising  before the start of their first term. Then, they may request face-to-face appointments, phone meetings, Skype meetings, or e-mail discussions with their faculty advisor about their course selection and performance.

To permit faculty to maintain a balance between teaching and advising (and their other responsibilities), advising loads are adjusted with the aim of achieving an equitable distribution of effort, while also trying to assign students to faculty whose expertise matches the chosen specialization or expressed interests of the student. Students are assigned to specific faculty based on their choice of specialization or career and academic interests as expressed in their statement of interest in the admission application. For example, students who select the Children and Youth specialization are assigned to Leanne Bowler, while those who choose the Digital Libraries or Information Technology specializations are advised by Daqing He or Christinger Tomer. An applicant who enrolled in the Individualized option would be assigned to faculty whose teaching or research interests (or previous professional experience) match the sector of librarianship sought after by the applicant. Program administrators and student services specialists are trained and made available to help with routine inquiries, while also reviewing course self-selections to identify potential errors in scheduling that will delay time to degree. Efforts to assist with advising are also bolstered with significant Web-based resources including student and public sites dedicated to explaining policies and procedures, course planners and course descriptions, schedules, and advisories regarding pre-requisites.

That being said, the bulk of advising still falls to faculty members, particularly those who advise in one of the specializations with significant enrollments. The following table shows faculty advising loads over a seven-year period.

LIS Faculty Advising Load (2006-2012)

	Fall 2006	Fall 2007	Fall 2008	Fall 2009	Fall 2010	Fall 2011	Fall 2012
LIS Average Advising Load:	28.00	28.53	32.13	34.85	30.14	30.08	52.44
LIS Active faculty:	13	15	15	13	14	12	9

This table shows the advising load for the permanent LIS faculty from Fall 2006 through Fall 2012. The average load considers all actively-enrolled MLIS students in that term; this may include students who were not registered for any courses in that particular term, but haven’t resigned from the program. It should be noted that the increase in the average load is directly related to the declining number of faculty in the program. The Fall 2012 Term, which is detailed below, does not include Professors Corrall and Beaton, who were new to the program and who will be assigned advisees in the future. Thus, we can expect the average advising load to decline in Fall 2013, in part due to an increased number of faculty members. This information reflects MLIS advisees only: it does not include doctoral advisees or students from other programs in the iSchool. In particular, Professor He has a joint appointment in the Information Science and Technology Program and serves as advisor to many students in the other academic program.

Distribution of Advisees table is available on-site.