Meyer, Katrina A. (1998). Faculty Workload Studies: Perspectives, Needs, and Future Directions. Reviewed by Maria Puzziferro-Biafora

Meyer, Katrina A. (1998). Faculty Workload Studies: Perspectives, Needs, and Future Directions. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report Volume 26, No. 1 Washington, D.C.: The George Washington University, Graduate School of Education and Human Development. Pp. 124. $24.00         ISBN: 1-878380-81-8 Reviewed by Maria Puzziferro-Biafora St. John's University, New York August 23, 1998         For some years now, faculty workload and productivity have been major contentious issues spiraling through the consciousness of public and private higher education institutions, state legislatures, the business community, parents, and students. At the heart of the problem lie issues of accountability to the paying constituents of higher education, productivity, and economic efficacy--with faculty at the core of the conflict. The increasing trend toward faculty criticism emanates from both internal and external sources. Faculty have become the target of criticisms that touch upon the essence of their work. A frequent complaint is that the professional and institutional practices of faculty contribute to low institutional productivity across the entire higher education system.         In Faculty Workload Studies, Meyer examines the issue of faculty productivity in its institutional, political, economic, and social facets. In three parts, she describes the context for faculty workload studies, including reasons for the rush of faculty criticism, perceptions and expectations on the part of higher education constituents, the workload studies themselves, and offers some suggestions and recommendations for improving institutional productivity. The Context for Faculty Workload Studies         Meyer begins by setting the context for faculty workload studies, addressing the question of why states have expressed such an interest in "productivity" in the higher education arena. The context of external forces that drive the current interest in faculty workload and productivity include the pressures placed on states by growing populations, faltering economies, rising costs in higher education, and the taxpayer's revolt of which higher education is likely to feel the pinch. Ultimately these factors result in a relative shortage of resources to keep up with the rising costs of higher education, causing states and the public to demand accountability and demonstrated productivity. Essentially, Meyer describes the collision of three main factors -- cost, quality and access. The fundamental question that higher education constituents ask is: is the rising cost of college worth the price?         Meyer also discusses internal factors that drive the examination of faculty workload and productivity. She delves into the "values" of higher education, and explicates how these values may increase costs and contribute to "cost disease." Drawing upon the work of Massey and Zemsky (1991), she maintains that work norms and academic practices raise the costs of higher education at an institutional level, and thus at the consumer (student) level. She employs the idea of the "academic ratchet," whereby faculty shift allegiance from their respective institutional goals toward those of their own academic specialty. "Output creep" captures the idea of faculty's shift away from teaching and toward research. In addition, specialization (i.e., faculty's pursuit of research, or "individual" interests), sabbaticals, retirement and tenure also contribute to the "cost disease" of higher education (p. 11).         "Mission confusion" is the process that keeps the cost-escalating dynamics in place by placing faculty in the midst of a tenure and reward system that values research over teaching, even though this may compromise the students learning opportunities and experiences. Meyer cites statistics by Astin (1993) that demonstrate negative correlation between faculty research orientation and factors such as student orientation (r= -.69); hours per week spent teaching and advising (r= -.83); and commitment to student development (r= -.72) (p. 14).         In summary, Meyer maintains in this discussion that external influences contributing to rising costs, as well as what she implies are wasteful institutional practices, such as sabbaticals, retirement and tenure, have lead to a situation where higher education constituents are asking hard questions about faculty productivity. But, what exactly is productivity? The Problem of Productivity         An important discussion that Meyer unfortunately leaves until the middle section of the book is the one of defining productivity, however her discussion of productivity is empirically weak and speculative. For example, she begins by stating, "It is in addition to the public's growing understanding that higher education experiences a level of "wastage" that would be unacceptable in the private sector and to parents footing and increasing tuition bill (p. 24)." She does seem to be somewhat unfounded in that assumption, given that she has hitherto cited no evidence as to this perception, much less this "growing understanding" on the part of the public.         Her next sentence seems to endeavor to support the prior statement by citing the increase in number of years taken to complete degree from 1977 to 1990. She does state that, "...although increasing 'time to degree' may be partly a function of the changing student clientele--more working adults and part-time students, for example--institutional practices come in for their share of the blame." (p. 24). The assertions made here, and the conclusions drawn show little consistency, evidence or forethought.         Meyer makes further statements that cloud the issue of productivity and raise questions about what institutional practices are "waste," and which are not. For example, she cites remediation as a type of "waste," as well as "weeding." She states, "..And although the charge to eliminate the waste of weeding and remedial education appears to be counterintuitive, it does focus attention on society's need for higher education to change its assumptions about whom it is to serve and how." (p. 24). However, Meyer stops there. This discussion leaves the reader with little understanding of "productivity" as a concept or measure. Perceptions         Meyer undertakes an examination of the perceptions and expectations that business, legislatures, the public, and higher education itself holds. The business world, of course, relies on higher education to train and provide much of its labor for its labor operation. Essentially, business as an influence argues for a meritocracy based on its unilaterally defined standards for labor force literacy. Meyer maintains that legislatures merely reflect the interests of business leaders, since "elected legislators are drawn primarily from the business sector...." (p. 30). However, the statistics she cites to uphold this statement demonstrate that the percent of legislators who come from the business sector was 25.9 percent in 1995. Twenty-five percent hardly constitutes the strength of the statement "drawn primarily from." Moreover, she goes on to state that "it is not surprising that state legislators often express concerns similar to those expressed by the business sector-- except now they are in a position to make decisions about funding and policy." These statements are exemplary of the speculative nature of Meyer's writing that is evident in some sections of the book.         Meyer's discussion of the public perception of higher education similarly is contradictory and anecdotal. She maintains that the public, "...perceives faculty as being unavailable to students, using aging lecture notes, and droning away to nearly empty lecture halls" (p. 32). However, she offers no evidence to support this claim, and goes on to cite Harvey and Associates (1994), who found that the public has limited knowledge of higher education. This is completely inconsistent with her earlier statement that the public is experiencing a "growing understanding" about the level of "wastage" occurring in higher education (p. 24).         The only definitive conclusion that can be drawn about the public perception of higher education is with regard to rising tuition. Meyer cites a study by Breneman and Finney (1997) that found that from 1991 to 1995, resident undergraduate tuition at public research institutions increased 41 percent compared with only a 12 percent increase in real per capita income during that time (p. 17). How does higher education view itself? Meyer uses this opportunity to discuss the much-needed point that higher education and its external constituents have starkly different views of the role and mission of higher education. She draws the section to a close stating: "As for service, higher education believes that it serves the external world admirably, providing just the services we need, the served, on the other hand, regard the current service to be less than adequate and want more and/or different services" (p. 38). Absolutely none of these statements are upheld in Meyer's preceding or succeeding chapters. Faculty Workload Studies         Finally, Meyer reviews and critically examines faculty workload studies, albeit in 14 out of 83 pages of text. After providing a wordy context, Meyer reviews some faculty workload studies, pointing out their strengths and weaknesses. The most common measures of faculty "productivity" are: the total number of hours faculty work per week; the number of hours spent each week on teaching, and the number of hours spent each week on research and other scholarly activities. However, as Meyer points out, these measures have little generalizability outside of their original context.         In perhaps what is the most valuable section of this book, Meyer points out the crucial limitations of faculty workload studies. First and foremost, the major findings of these studies are limited by the danger of looking at raw numbers out of context. For example, workload studies do not incorporate factors such as institutional mission, which is likely to affect research activity measures and instruction-related activities. Second, Meyer points out that cross-institutional comparative analyses are nearly impossible because of the use of differing measures or terminologies in the study design, as well as the lack of contextual consistency.         Finally, Meyer maintains that our own understandings of productivity may cloud the issue. Different definitions of productivity can complicate its measurement. For example, depending on institutional mission, faculty productivity may be defined in terms of workload consisting of number of publications, hours spent in the classroom, or hours spent counseling and advising students. Defining productivity in terms of instructional-related activities is much more problematic, since quantitative measures used to evaluate research activities (e.g., number of articles published) are not applicable. The lack of understanding surrounding the outcomes of teaching may well be the barrier that stands in the way of defining the productivity of a "teacher." Useful Solutions         Meyer offers her recommendations and solutions, drawing heavily from two themes -- the shift from teaching to learning, and the shift toward instructional technology. She asserts that the sole focus on "faculty productivity" is not enough to bring about improvements in institutional productivity. She proposes that institutions should: Focus on students learning Define outputs, i.e., define what skills and knowledge graduates should possess upon graduation. Clarify curricula and mission through internal discussions among the institutional players to determine how external constituencies can be served at justifiable cost Realize the potential of technology Understand the market, i.e. appreciating and meeting what parents and students want from higher education Realign rewards for teaching and research Make costs clear Experiment and restructure         She makes these recommendations, some of which are potentially useful to higher education policymakers, but fails to explain how they will improve productivity more effectively than focusing on faculty workload studies. Moreover, her strategies are strategies for action, and cannot be reasonably compared to faculty workload studies, which are exploratory investigations for deciding upon action. Thus, she may be overstating her assertion that her recommendations are most useful instead of faculty workload studies. Discussion         Overall, Faculty Workload Studies is an interesting, well-researched and informative exposition concerning the context and issues of faculty workload studies. Though it suffers from some inconsistencies and lack of tight scientific conclusions, it does contribute to the body of literature dealing with faculty workload issues.         The main shortcoming of the book is its overemphasis on drawing the context for faculty workload studies. Meyer explains faculty workload studies in the context of a wide variety of forces, both external (governmental, social, and economic) and internal ("values" of higher education system). Yet, the reader is left wondering what exactly the book is about--the context for faculty workload studies, or the strengths, weaknesses and limitations of the faculty workload studies themselves. Meyer's provision of some "useful solutions" at the end of the monograph could serve as a collection of useful tips for higher education policymakers. She does not provide evidence -- scientific or theoretically reasoned--as to the applicability or value of her recommendations for improving productivity, yet they are put forth in a temperate, conservative and thoughtful tone. In conclusion, this is a book that should be approached as an "essay" or "editorial piece," and read critically. Meyer does draw on a useful and comprehensive body of research literature in the area of faculty workload studies, but does speculate largely from it and draw upon anecdotal, subjective and apocryphal propositions to substantiate many conclusions. References Astin, A.W. (1993). What Matters in College? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Breneman, D.and Finney, J. (1997). "The Changing Landscape: Higher Education Finance in the 1990s." In Shaping the Future. San Jose: California Higher Education Policy Center. Harvey, J. and Associates. 1994. First Impressions and Second Thoughts: Public Support for Higher Education. Washington D.C.: American Council on Education. Massey, W. and Zemsky, R. (1991). "Improving Academic Productivity: The New Frontier?" Capital Ideas. 6, September/October, 1-14. About the Reviewer         Maria Puzziferro-Biafora is the Faculty Technology Coordinator at St. John's University, and a doctoral student in the Program in Higher Education at New York University. Her professional interests include faculty development issues and programs, and technology in higher education.