Frequently Asked Question
Over the past couple of weeks Blair and I have been conducting “town hall” meetings with faculty across campus to discuss the up-coming round of bargaining. We also have an opportunity to answer collective agreement questions faculty may have.
One that has come up frequently concerns “How many Class Contact Hours (CCH) can be assigned to faculty?”
The answer to this question is in Section 36 – Workloads in the SAFA collective agreement:
36.08 (a) A class contact hour shall be fifty (50) minutes of scheduled instruction to students.
(b) Class contact hours shall not exceed the following unless agreed to by the instructor:
(i) The greater of twenty (20) hours or three percent (3%) of the applicable class contact hours, in any given week averaged over a fifteen (15) week period,.
(ii) Six (6) hours in any given day, or
(iii) Four (4) consecutive hours in any given day.
Most of this is straight forward, however, it may be helpful for me to give you an example of how 36.08 (b)(i) is calculated. Because it reads “The greater of twenty (20) hours or three percent (3%) of the applicable class contact hours, in any given week averaged over a fifteen (15) week period: for all but those instructors in the PCK program (Hospitality and Tourism) the number will be 20 CCH. So, for instance, if your annual load is 540 the calculation would be:
540 X .03 = 16.2. So 20 is larger than 16.2 which means you could be loaded to 20 CCH in any given week – averaged over a 15 week period. The 15 week period is the current semester in which you are teaching. You could be assigned a higher weekly loading than 20 CCH per week but only if you agree as per 36.08 (b) above.
If your annual loading is 675 then the calculation would be:
675 X .03 = 20.25 which would be rounded down to 20 CCH.
Or if your annual load was 735:
735 X .03 = 22.05 which would be rounded down to 22 CCH.
Again, any loading above that requires that you be asked and agree to it – simply signing your loading sheet is not the same as being asked and agreeing to a higher loading.
Of course, in addition to the average weekly loading restriction, there is also the requirement that you not have a schedule that requires you to teach more than 6 CCH in any given day or more than 4 CCH in a row without your agreement.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about how your loading is affected by the collective agreement.