Inside Iowa State: Iowa State University

July 26, 2002

Faculty report 57-hour work week

by Linda Charles
The average Iowa State faculty member reported working a 57-hour week last fiscal year, according to an annual report on faculty activities recently presented to the Board of Regents, State of Iowa.

The report, compiled from a faculty survey, showed faculty work weeks have remained relatively constant for several years, varying only a couple of hours from year to year.

Since FY85, the average faculty work week has ranged from a low of 54.9 hours to a high of 58.8 hours, according to the report. FY02's average of 56.7 hours was down slightly from the previous year's 58.2 hours.

Iowa State faculty continued to spend the most amount of their time on teaching-related activities in FY02, followed by research activities.

When all ranks were averaged together, faculty spent about 50 percent of their time on teaching activities and 32 percent on research activities. Another 13 percent was spent on public and professional service.

ISU's tenure-track faculty reported spending the most time (40 percent) on research, "based on their desire to establish a research program early in their careers," according to the report. Full professors, on the other hand, reported more time on administrative activities (10 percent) than the other two ranks combined.

According to the report, public and professional service was fairly consistent among the ranks last year at Iowa State, with professors devoting 13 percent of their time to service, associate professors 16 percent and assistant professors 11 percent.

Iowa State had a smaller percentage of part-time faculty than the other two state regent universities and the national average, according to the report. With a total of 1,757 faculty members, Iowa State reported 85 percent were full time and 15 percent part time. The University of Iowa reported 24 percent of its faculty were part time and the University of Northern Iowa reported 18 percent. Nationally, the figure is 21 percent. The regents will use FY02 as a baseline to track whether the three state universities mirror a national trend of an increasing percentage of part-time faculty.