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“Real” differences in teaching loads between R1s and teaching-oriented undergrad programs?

In our new "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I would like to hear more about the "real" differences in teaching load between a research-oriented program and a teaching-oriented program.

I am curious about this because I feel that the numbers of courses could be very misleading. I work in a teaching-oriented, undergraduate-only program, and the standard teaching load for us is 3/2. The typical teaching load in a research-oriented program seems to be 2/2 (I could be wrong though). However, I feel that my teaching load is way more than just one course, and I almost have no time doing research during the semester. I have never gone to more than one conference during a semester: simply canceling classes for conferences seems less acceptable in my institution, and I usually fell behind on grading/teaching if I went to a conference.

I have never taught in a research-oriented department, and my impression of the teaching load at such a place is mostly from my time in graduate school. It seems to me that professors at research-oriented programs usually have TAs for service courses, so they only need to teach in the classroom and done with teaching, leaving grading for their TAs. TAs can also cover classes so professors go to quite a few conferences during semesters. They can also teach on topics that align well with their research. So, the actual teaching load in a research-oriented program is way lighter.

Am I right? I would like to learn more about this. Thank you!

Good question. Teaching loads at my university are 3/3, and I find myself in a similar position with respect to research during the academic year–though canceling classes for conference travel aren't a problem and I'm able to get plenty of research done during summer and winter breaks. While my sense is that faculty in research-oriented programs seem to have far fewer teaching burdens with undergraduate courses (for the reasons the OP gives), I've wondered whether that is made up for by much higher demands with respect to graduate teaching and mentoring (including serving on dissertation committees for multiple students, reading and commenting on several-hundred page dissertations, etc.). 

Anyway, it would be great to hear from readers in different types of jobs. What are the "real differences" between teaching loads in teaching-focused versus R1 programs? What type of job are you in? What is the official teaching load, and how much time does it leave for research?

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18 responses to ““Real” differences in teaching loads between R1s and teaching-oriented undergrad programs?”

  1. academic migrant

    I don’t know about the difference between R1 and R2 (generally), but I have held a teaching-only temporary position and now hold a research-teaching continuing position.
    The OP correctly identifies that TAs/Tutors make a huge difference. It can come down to whether you will need to do the tutorials and marking. If the answer is no to both, especially for undergraduate courses, then the teaching load is basically just within the teaching semesters.
    The OP also correctly identifies the difference between research-aligned courses and those that aren’t. Generally speaking, say, for a graduate course, I can have 0 prep time (like a course completely based on my dissertation or recent research), or make it the case that the prep time is exactly the time I spend on reading stuff relevant to research. If course titles are just assigned to me, on the other hand, prep may not contribute to my research (I’ve never been lucky enough for this to happen).
    Another thing that makes a huge difference to me is how much I need to cover someone else when some colleagues suddenly become unavailable. A rich university can easily fine some grad student to do the teaching and marking. (I was on the receiving end, i.e. the grad student twice FWIW, and I do wish my employer could do the same for me now…)
    Relatedly, I find the time and energy consumed when it comes to marking grad vs under assignments radically different. For grad assignments, I can go on and on providing detailed comments; but for under grads, I will need to visit this page called “Philosophy Students Say the Darndest Things” every now and then to keep myself barely motivated.
    For where I work, there are also things called grants. As far as I can tell, some may include “teaching buyout.” I’ve never heard of “research buyout.”

    Reply
  2. Philosophy Miner

    Here’s a data point.
    I currently teach a 3/3 load with no TA help or student graders. Before my current job, I worked as a VAP at a couple of places. In those jobs, I taught a 3/3 load with TA help. Typically, half of my six annual courses as a VAP had TA’s. I typically assigned those TA’s 80-90 percent of the grading, which I only minimally supervised.
    I would say that teaching now takes approximately 150% of the amount of time that it took when I was a VAP, despite having the same nominal teaching load and fewer total students in my courses.
    That said, I still get some research done during the semester, normally.

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  3. Mary

    I teach 2/2 at an R1. Having TAs makes a big difference in that I don’t need to run tutorials or mark anything. However, I still get a very high volume of emails from students who ask me to confirm things their TA said, or simply don’t ask the TA at all. I also have to manage all the TAs which is additional work.
    On the other hand, I’m also teaching a big class with only 1 TA so I am having to do about half the marking for that class (our TAs are unionized and have limited hours they can work). So it’s not all roses in R1 land.

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  4. Assc prof

    I teach a 4/4. It’s manageable, for a few reasons. Absent these, it’d be quite difficult:
    1. I usually have just two preps
    2. Classes usually have 20-25 students each.
    3. There’s little oversight, so I can save time by designing courses (including assessment) in whatever way I see fit.
    I have time to do some research during the semester, but I don’t really have a good enough work ethic to take advantage. If I do research, it’s because the muse hit.

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  5. Michel

    I typically teach eight a year, but the pattern is variable. It can be 4/4, 3/3/1/1, 4/2/2, etc. This year it’s 5/5 (with four preps per semester).
    A semester when I teach just two is one with noticeably more free time than one when I teach three. I detect no difference between three and four, and a real difference between four and five because of the added marking.
    If I’ve taught the course before, the number of preps makes no difference to me at all. The number of new preps does, though.
    Because I micro-work, I manage to get a good bit of research done even when teaching five, as now.

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  6. The Real SLAC Prof

    I’ve taught at both an R1 with a 2/2 and a SLAC with a 2/3, and in my view it is a wash in terms of time spent teaching and mentoring (with some caveats since I was at the R1 in the first part of my career, and everything takes longer when you are new).
    Yes, I’m spending more time grading at the SLAC without TAs, but managing TAs takes a lot of time, especially if you approach the task with any sense of responsibility. When I had TAs, I remember thinking on several occasions, “I would just prefer to do all this myself.” Instructing them on how you would like to grade, attempting to achieve consistency across graders, dealing with TA flakiness and so on took up a lot of time. Of course, once a TA was “trained,” this was minimized, but there was always new TAs to train.
    And teaching and mentoring graduate students takes a lot of time and attention. At my present institution, I’m truly off over the summer and winter break and when on leave, but you can never be completely off if you have graduate students. Teaching grad students can also involve some emotional labor that is absent in teaching undergraduates. Some of the work of teaching grad students can dovetail with one’s own research, of course, but it is still a lot of time spent on teaching and teaching adjacent activities.
    There are times when I miss teaching graduate students because the level of discourse is so much higher and I was able to learn things from them that I cannot learn from even the best undergrads. And it’s nice to see one’s former grad students progress in the profession (if they are lucky enough to get jobs!). But in my particular situation, it was decidedly not the case that the R1 job involved less time dedicated to student-focused activities.

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  7. Bill V.

    At our large state regional R2, we nominally teach 4/4, with it being most common to teach 3/3 because of course releases for research or major service assignments. We have no grad program, so no TAs, though our classes have been capped at 26 (going up to 30 now because of a budget issue). There is no rule about this, but as a department we make it a practice that even on 4/4 we only have two preps (usually an upper division course for majors and three sections of a general education course). I typically don’t get much research done during the semesters when I have entirely new preps (these days that’s not often since I now have ten different courses I’ve taught at least once), but otherwise I do have some time to write.

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  8. anon

    My own take is that there is a lot of variability between R1s and even within R1s, depending on the details of one’s job. Sometimes R1 jobs have a lighter teaching load, sometimes they don’t.
    Just to amplify the “TA management” point above – a previous colleague of mine was responsible for teaching a bunch of very large courses, 400+ enrolled, and would regularly be working with teams of 25+ TAs every semester. Management ends up taking up a lot of time in contexts like this, not to mention dealing with various non-grading things that come up when you have so many students.
    Also, I’ve never worked somewhere where you get a TA for everything. It’s been more about thresholds – more than 40, you get a TA, more than 60, you get a TA, and so forth. Depending on the institutional thresholds and your courses in a given semester, you can end up with a fair bit of marking to do.
    Someone else I knew was on a very large number of dissertation committees. This can also really eat into the hours you have available.

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  9. r1 faculty

    If you’re doing your job right at an R1 with a PhD program and a 2/2 and TAs, you should be:
    –teaching your TAs how to teach (e.g., at the VERY least: meeting with them regularly to check in; grading with them; visiting their discussion classes; giving them constructive and critical feedback; helping them troubleshoot issues they encounter).
    –spending significant time mentoring grad students in various non-research-specific ways, including preparing at least your own students for the academic job market.
    –spending significant time on your grad student’s research, dissertations, etc.
    –There are significantly more service tasks that come with having a graduate program, and I think it really varies how much service people are doing at R1s, but some of us are doing… an enormous amount.
    My own view: it’s probably easier to coast/be a crappy colleague/teacher/mentor at an R1 with a PhD program than it is at, say, an undergrad-only school with a 3/3 load, and thus spend much more time on your own research. If you’re doing your job correctly, however, I doubt it is less work. I bet they are a wash in terms of actual hours spent on teaching; however depending on how good your grad students are and how much you get out of teaching and working with them, and depending on how much control you have over what you teach (I have a lot), I do still think there is probably an advantage to your research at an R1, which is that many of your teaching/mentoring/advising tasks dovetail with your research etc.

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  10. Chris

    Just to follow up on “anon” – I don’t know about how to compare R1 to R2 or other teaching loads, but I’ve been at three different R1s all with an official “2/2” teaching load (unless you have an endowed chair, then it could be less). But the most striking thing to me based on this small sample is how different the teaching load can be across these three different R1s (all “2/2”), depending on things such as: how often do you get to repeat preps, how much TA help do you really get (at my current institution, it is never enough to cover all the marking of the course the TAs are assigned to), how big is the graduate program? Are there a lot of graduate students in your areas and so you’re on a lot of committees? or are you only doing a little graduate teaching (either because the graduate program is smaller or because of your particular area?).
    Some places give you more freedom about what and how to teach, which as others have mentioned, can make a big difference in prep time, grading, etc.
    Maybe I teach grad seminars on the wrong topic but they are always a lot of work for me.

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  11. more comparisons

    There is an enormous difference between bare minimum vs on top of every duty, at a solid department with good PhD program. (For me it was much lighter at an MA only department.) I haven’t had experience with other positions. However, from what I gather from some friends, a visiting teaching position with 4-4 (2 preps) actually is lighter than doing the job right at a good R1.

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  12. r1 faculty

    and just to quickly add: I spend way (way) more time prepping for a grad seminar than an undergrad class, and I don’t think I am alone. The advantage of teaching courses that dovetail with your research is not that they are magically less work to teach! Teaching PhD students, if they are good, requires way more intense attention to the texts, to thinking about how they fit together, to reading students’ weekly papers, to meeting with them, etc. than teaching undergrads does. The advantage is instead that you have a built in research group to help you think about stuff (while you are helping them think about stuff! do not exploit them!) and do philosophy with. But yeah the time it takes me to prepare to teach grad students is probably at least 4-5 times as much as to teach, say, an intro level course that I have taught before for the same amount of time (a week’s worth of courses), and probably twice as much time as teaching, say, an upper level undergrad course with good majors in it that is new to me.

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  13. Noob

    Can someone please inform a noob like me exactly what a “prep” is and what the different numbers like 2/2 and 4/4 mean?

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  14. Tim O’Keefe

    “2/2” etc. refers to how many courses you teach over the course of a year, broken down by the number of courses each semester. So 4/4 means you teach 4 courses Fall and Spring semesters, 3/2 means you teach 3 courses one semester and 2 courses the other semester, etc. (Occasionally you might see somebody write something like “4/4/1,” with the third number referring to summer teaching.)
    “Preps” = “Preparations.” If I have a three course teaching load one semester, with two sections of Introduction to Philosophy and one section of Metaphysics, that would be 2 preps, because I have to prepare the lesson plans/lectures, make up exams, etc., for 2 different classes.

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  15. Now ya know

    Re Noob:
    The numbers refer to the number of classes that one is required to teach each semester, e.g., 4/4 is four classes in the Fall and four classes in the Spring.
    Preps refer to the number of different courses that one has to prepare to teach in a given semester. So, a 4/4 with 2 preps would mean that you teach four sections composed of two different courses (e.g., 2 sections of PHIL 1001 and 2 sections of PHIL 3060).

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  16. Noob

    Thank you!

    Reply
  17. Comparative assessment

    I moved from an undergrad only R2 (with institutional pretensions of being an R1) to an R1. Both were a 2/2 for me, but I did substantially less teaching/service work at the R2. I didn’t have TAs but my class sizes were smaller and I could repeat preps all the time. In my R1, I both have to manage a lot of TAs (which I find to be WAY more work than just grading a slightly smaller class myself) but I also find teaching grad students to be far more work than undergrads (you need to be more on top of your game and you can’t really repeat preps). In addition there is just much more service to be done (dissertation committees, events to organize, admissions etc). I have distinctively less research flexible time. Lots of other benefits that I appreciate–but more free time is not one of them!

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  18. R1 focus

    One angle on this question is to think about the ways in which professors are evaluated for tenure and promotion. For instance, if I’ve been told that, more than anything else, my research will determine whether I get tenure, then I will spend most of my time and energy and creative juices on research. If I were told that my tenure would depend significantly on my teaching, then I’d divide my time in a different way.
    This matters, to me at least, because I can put a radically different amount of time into the same number of classes and preps, and I imagine my colleagues could as well, and this is reflected in many of the above comments. In particular, I know I could be a better teacher, and I know I could give more of my energy to my undergrad and grad students. At the same time, that’s just not where the incentives are for me.
    Of course, some people have a large number of classes to teach each semester (or quarter!) and they are still evaluated based on their research. It could just be worth keeping in mind that at a “research-oriented” department, as opposed to a “teaching-oriented” department, there are different priorities for faculty. If a department wants their faculty to do a lot of research, they will generally communicate that and efforts will be spent accordingly.

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