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Faculty Workload Policies

Consistent with the revised University Faculty Workload Policy (2025), academic units at Saint Louis University are expected to develop written workload policies for faculty.

Such policies help to ensure equity in faculty evaluation. This page currently links to the 2025 policy as well as unit-level policies. Unit-level policies are reviewed and approved by the Provost.

University Faculty Workload Policy

University Faculty Workload Policy (effective date Feb. 01, 2025)

Vertical and Horizontal Policy Review

During the 2025-26 academic year, unit-level workload policies were reviewed for consistency with the University Faculty Workload Policy (vertical review) and equity (horizontal review) across units. Vertical reviews are complete.

Horizontal reviews are complete in the areas of equitable use of multipliers, service hours credit, teaching-intensive workloads and non-classroom or class/course equivalents. (See comparison charts linked in the sidebar.)

Horizontal reviews in the areas of production output as it relates to research/scholarship expectations at the disciplinary level, and consistent use of research “buy outs” for university-supported research are in process.

Please note:

  • The definition of “Workload Unit” (WU) in the University Workload Policy accounts for and includes time for the following:
    • course design
    • weekly course preparation
    • preparation time for new or redesigned courses for subsequent terms.
    Accordingly, additional WUs for any of those activities are not normally assigned.  Any exceptions to this are at the discretion of dean.
  • WUs for co-taught/dual-listed courses will be divided at the discretion of the dean. Typically, the total (aggregate) WUs assigned for all faculty involved in a co-teaching situation will not exceed the total credit hours of the co-taught course
  • Mentoring of students typically falls within the WUs under the teaching category. Mentoring as part of a faculty member’s research typically falls within the WUs under the research category. For those faculty who mentor students as beyond that which is included as part of teaching/research may be accounted for within WUs for service. Consideration is at the approval of the dean.

Unit-Level Workload Policies

Approved workload policies for colleges, schools, centers, libraries, and departments/programs are listed below. 

* A workload policy for this unit is not required by the provost as the unit does not report to the provost.